The Interference of Mara Jade
by LPK9
Summary: Bespin, and its aftermath, go down differently due to the involvement of a certain fiery redhead. ESB AU.
1. Chapter 1

_Dagobah_

"You must not go!"

The old Jedi Master's eyes were wide, his voice both pleading and commanding.

"But Han and Leia will die if I don't!"

Luke clenched his jaw. He admired, even revered, his old master, but he couldn't ignore his visions. Han and Leia and Chewie needed him.

"You don't know that, even Yoda has not been able to see their fate."

And now Obi-Wan had decided to make one of his rare appearances.

"But I can help them! I feel the Force!"

"But you cannot control it. This is a dangerous time for you, when you will be tempted by the Dark Side of the Force."

"Listen to Obi-Wan you must. The cave. Remember your failure in the cave."

"But I've learned so much since then! Master Yoda, I promise to return and finish what I've begun. You have my word!"

"It is you and your abilities the Emperor wants. That is why your friends are made to suffer."

Luke lifted his chin, "That's why I have to go."

"Luke, if you choose to face Vader, you will do it alone. I cannot interfere," Obi-Wan said gravely.

"I understand," Luke replied, his mind already on the coming confrontation.

"Skywalker."

All three males, two physical, one spectral, turned as the red headed woman emerged from the path. She was young, even younger than Luke, but her eyes were steely.

"Master Yoda, can you give us a minute? Kenobi, I assume since Skywalker is talking to the air and I see something wispy and white under that tree that you are around as well. Get out of here."

"Talk some sense into young Skywalker, perhaps you can," Yoda muttered, stumping off toward his hut.

Kenobi, with a hopeful glance at the young woman, disappeared.

"Skywalker," Mara repeated, "you know I'm not 100% sure about Master Yoda's perspective and the mysterious Kenobi whom I can only sort of see. But they are right about one thing. You can't beat Vader."

Luke bit his lip and turned away from her, "I ... I've learned so much, Mara. I feel the power of the Force."

She put a hand out and touched his arm, "I know you do. You have tremendous potential and significant power but Vader is a one man army. He has decades of experience."

"He killed my father," the youth said softly, "and now he's taken the people who mean the most to me in the galaxy. I can't leave them to be tortured mercilessly, Mara. If he kills me, he kills me."

"I don't think he'll kill you," Mara replied solemnly. "The bounty for you is alive only and the word in the Imperial grapevine is that Vader is obsessed with you. He wants to capture you and probably turn you to the Dark Side, which is a fate worse than death. Skywalker, you don't know what Palpatine is like. I do."

"I know," Luke replied softly. "I know. But how can I hide here in safety while they suffer? And I won't turn to the Dark Side, I promise you that."

Mara sighed and glanced abstractly toward the path where Yoda had disappeared.

"Listen, I told you that I was trained in reading faces and expressions?"

"Yes?" her companion asked, his expression puzzled.

"I admit Yoda is hard for me, being ancient, wrinkly, and green. But I think there is something going on with Vader that the elf isn't telling you. Something about Vader's history with your father, maybe. Vader is hunting for you for some particularly nasty purpose and knowing him, he will probably succeed. He rarely fails."

"I know, and I'm going anyway," Luke replied with determination. "Thank you for your friendship, Mara. I will never forget you. Keep yourself safe. If I do perish, then perhaps you are the remaining hope for the galaxy."

Jade shook her head, her red curls shifting in Dagobah's damp air, "I know I'm out of your league in the Force, Skywalker. And besides, if you go, I'm going too. I'm not going to let you face Vader alone."

Luke shook his head slowly, then more rapidly, "Absolutely not, Mara. It's bad enough that I'm probably going to my death. I'm not bringing you with me. Vader knows you! He'll probably kill you on sight or worse, capture you and let the Emperor wreak his vengeance at your perceived betrayal."

Jade crossed her arms and straightened more, "If you can be stupidly loyal, so can I. If it wasn't for you, I never would have found this place and Master Yoda, who successfully cut the bond between me and Palpatine. And I never would have accepted the truth about the Emperor's true nature without your friendship."

Skywalker gritted his teeth and took a few hasty steps toward the X-wing.

"My ship's only a hundred meters to the west," she said drily. "And I know where you are going. Bespin."

"Then help save my friends, Mara," Luke replied quickly, turning to face her. "Please. I'll ... I'll at least distract Vader. If you're right, if he's an army, then together we won't beat him. But if he's busy with me, you'll be able to save my friends."

"Luke ..."

"Please, Mara, I'm begging you."

Mara Jade, former Emperor's Hand, looked at that open, honest, winsome farmboy face and sighed.

"All right, Luke. But once I've rescued them, I'm coming back for you."

"No, you're not."

"Yes, I am."

/-

_A few minutes later ..._

"Told you I did. Reckless is he. Now, matters are worse."

"That boy is our last hope."

"No," Yoda said gravely, staring up into the sky where an X-wing and a TIE fighter were now dots of light, "There is another."

"Yes," Kenobi replied irritably, "and Vader has her in his mechanical clutches. So the situation isn't that encouraging where she is concerned either."

"True that is," Yoda agreed in a dispirited way.

/-

_Less than 10 light hours from Bespin_

_Less than a day later_

Mara's TIE fighter came out of space far enough from Bespin that the gas giant's star was only a bright dot in the distance. She felt it wise to be some distance from the planet until she knew what was going on there.

She could sense Skywalker closer to the gas giant. He was, of course, rushing to his doom with amazing courage and little sense.

Mara sighed in exasperation. She liked Skywalker. A lot. But he had never faced Vader. He had no idea of the Sith Lord's power. He had no idea of the power of the Emperor. He had no idea that his fate was tied into that of the galaxy.

Or perhaps it wasn't. Perhaps all this was nonsense. Just because Master Yoda and the mysterious ghostly Kenobi and Darth Vader and by extension Emperor Palpatine were obsessed over Luke Skywalker didn't mean he was that important, did it?

Well, yes... it did. He was obviously important. Very,_ very _important.

Mara bit her lip as she studied the data stream from her augmented instrumentation. It was rather ironic that her former master had provided this truly advanced TIE given that she was now determined to wreak havoc against the old shriveled prune.

_Executor_ was in orbit around Bespin. That was it. No more capital ships. But there would be TIE's patrolling. She had enough random codes that she'd be able to slip past the Super Destroyer and her myriad support craft and into Bespin. And then find Leia Organa and Han Solo and Chewbacca and ... a droid, apparently. And get them out. And then return for Skywalker because she really did like him and she'd die rather than let Vader get his cold, cyborg hands on him.

/-

_Slave 1 Docking Bay_

_Bespin_

_2 hours later _

"Put Captain Solo in the cargo hold," Boba Fett ordered coldly. He watched while Vader's minions guided the frozen block of carbonite into the hold and exited the ship. Once they were clear, he strode up and quickly closed the ramp of his precious _Slave 1_.

He checked the hold and sure enough, Han Solo was lying on the floor in his block, his face twisted with agony, his hands outstretched.

It was the captain's own fault. Getting mixed up with Rebels was never a good idea. Of course, Fett would have probably hunted the captain down regardless of Solo's affiliations. Jabba the Hutt was thoroughly annoyed with the good captain, and the alive only bounty on the man was particularly delectable.

Time to get moving. Fett marched into the cockpit and quickly removed his helmet, sighing in relief as he did so. The helmet made him look menacing and provided substantial protection to his head, but it was rather heavy. He wondered if Vader ever removed his death mask.

The bounty hunter quickly ran through the starting sequence and lifted off the platform. Just as the ship departed the landing platform, his sensors displayed an attack!

A quick glance at the rear holocams revealed a few figures, one of them a gargantuan Wookiee, shooting blaster bolts at his ship. Fett's lips curved into a grim smile. It appeared that the determined Alderaanian princess had slipped her Imperial escort and had raced off to save her love. Well, too little, too late. By the time Organa and company tracked down a ship (assuming the Empire didn't kill them first), the _Slave 1_ would be in hyperspace and en route to Tatooine.

Once again, Boba Fett smiled. Vader had paid him well for his role in capturing the Rebels, and when he collected from Jabba, he'd be on the verge of being genuinely rich. He could take a few months off to enjoy the particular pleasures that Jabba's palace provided.

Fett leaned back and closed his eyes for a long moment when his danger sense suddenly tingled. He opened his eyes and turned his head, locking his gaze with that of an entirely unfamiliar red maned woman who stood less than a meter away. How had she gotten on his ship? And what was her purpose here?

The last thing he saw was the determination in her eyes. A moment later, the vibroblade entered his neck and he knew no more.

/

"Great, carbon freeze!" Mara Jade muttered aloud to herself. "Now what?"

She cast a last worried look at the frozen Solo and strode into the cockpit. So she had Solo, but he wasn't in the greatest of shape. How did one defrost someone from carbon freeze?

Worse yet, was Luke Skywalker also residing in his own block of carbonite? That must be part of Vader's plan, to encase the youth in a frozen prison and thus prevent him from mortal injury or escape.

Mara bit her lip hard. She wanted to go after Skywalker right now. But ...

She had promised Skywalker. She had promised that she'd help save his friends.

/

Millennium Falcon's_ Docking Bay_

_Bespin_

_20 minutes later_

"Leia!" Lando Calrissian yelled. "Go!"

Leia Organa cast one last look at the stormtroopers firing at them, only to gasp aloud as a familiar ship dropped to the landing bay between the Falcon and their Imperial enemies.

"Lando, wait!" she cried out. "Look, it's _Slave 1_!"

The baron came back down the ramp, his eyes wide in astonishment. His bewilderment grew as the side cannons of the bounty hunters ship turned and began firing laser blasts toward the Imperial stormtroopers seeking to halt their escape.

"What in all the galaxies?" he demanded.

Thirsty seconds later, the ramp of the _Slave 1_ lowered to the ground and both Leia and Lando lifted their blasters. A completely unfamiliar red maned woman crept cautiously down the ramp, her own hand clutching a blaster.

"Leia Organa?" she called out.

"Yes?" the princess replied, totally bewildered.

"I'm Mara Jade, a friend of Luke Skywalker's and I agreed to help you get out of here. I've got Solo in his carbonite block here. Can you help me transfer him to your ship?"

Leia took a hopeful step forward even as Lando reached out a hand to stop her.

"What about Fett?" he growled suspiciously.

The woman looked up at the top of the ramp and pulled on a rope dangling there. A moment later, the armor clad form of Boba Fett, minus his helmet, rolled ignominiously down the ramp and onto the ground, the rope attached to his leg.

"I killed him," the woman stated coldly.

There was a stunned moment and Lando muttered, "Wow, I like this girl!"

"Chewbacca! Come down here and help me get Han!" Leia yelled up the ramp, and then raced toward her love.

"And you are?" Jade demanded of Lando, stepping to one side to allow first the tiny, brunette woman, then the hairy Wookiee, to run past her into the bounty hunter's craft. Absently she noted that the tall sentient had a legless, gold plated protocol droid attached to its back. How odd.

"Lando Calrissian, administrator of this facility," Lando said with a practiced smirk. A moment later, the smirk was replaced by a scowl, "Or I was, anyway, until Vader took control of the city."

"Do you know anything about potential medical complications from carbon freezing?" Jade asked worriedly.

Calrissian frowned, "No, I'm afraid not. And this facility wasn't designed to freeze sentients."

Mara felt her breath catch in her throat, "Vader's going to use it on Skywalker, isn't he?"

Lando nodded grimly, "I'm afraid so. Vader seems to be absolutely obsessed with that young man. I'm not sure why.

"I don't know either," Jade replied. She sighed and forced herself to focus, "Do you have a med droid aboard the _Falcon_?"

"No, we don't. Do you think we'll need one?"

The former Emperor's Hand nodded her head, "It would be wise, wouldn't it? Seems like the sooner you unfreeze Solo the better, but if he has complications, you're in trouble. Is there any chance you can pick one up from somewhere on Bespin?"

Calrissian thought hard. The city was in chaos now that he'd broadcast the evacuation notice. But there was an odd little docking bay in the northwest corner of the city, a thoroughly unpleasant nook where particularly nasty chemicals were stored before being offloaded into garbage scows. He could ask Lobot to send a med droid there and pick it up before they escaped into hyperspace. Hopefully the Imperials would be too busy with Skywalker and the terrified denizens of Cloud City to find them there.

"Yes, I can get a med droid," he barked out suddenly, pressing a variety of buttons on his wrist com.

"Good," Jade replied, stepping back as Chewbacca carefully guided Han Solo's frozen form up the ramp of the Falcon. "Do you have any idea where Skywalker is? I'm going after him."

Calrissian shot the woman a surprised look. Go after Skywalker? With Vader involved? Was she crazy?

But these people seemed to be into insane lost causes and it was obvious this beautiful young lady was close to Skywalker.

"We saw Luke as we made our way from carbon freeze chamber," Leia Organa said with anguish in her eyes. "Lando hadn't broken us free yet and stormtroopers kept him from getting too close. They were funneling him toward the carbon freezing facility. I'm sure Vader has engaged him now."

Mara reached out cautiously through the Force. She didn't want to distract the youth nor did she want to attract Vader's notice.

She withdrew in seconds, thankful that he was still alive. So far.

"Ok, I'm going after him," she stated, checking her blaster and taking one stride toward the exit of the landing bay.

"Wait!" Lando called. She halted impatiently.

"Listen, Jade, I think you're crazy, but if you really want to get closer to him, come on board the _Falcon._ The docking bay where we're picking up the med droid is far closer to the carbon freezing chamber."

Leia nodded and grabbed the other woman's arm, "Come on. Let's go. If you're going after him, I am too."

Mara shook her head. It was like some crazy infection of sacrificial idiocy.

/-

_Gantry_

_Bespin_

"No, I am your father," Darth Vader intoned dramatically.

Luke Skywalker stared at the black behemoth. His injured arm was a raging ball of agony, his brain sluggish to the point that it took two seconds for the words to penetrate.

"No," he groaned hoarsely. "No, that's not true. That's impossible!"

"Search your feelings," the giant Sith replied, his tone pleading through the deep vocoder. "You know it to be true!"

"No!" Luke cried out, his breath coming out in sobbing gasps of horror. "Nooooo!"

"Luke, you can destroy the Emperor. He has foreseen this. It is your destiny. Join me and together we can rule the galaxy as father and son!"

Darth Vader reached out through the Force toward his broken son. He hadn't meant the fight to come this far, hadn't meant to harm the boy this severely, but at least they were here now together and Luke had no choice but to accept his offer and stand by his side. Together they would destroy the Emperor and rule the galaxy together.

"Come with me," he intoned, lifting his right hand toward his battered boy. "It is the only way."

Luke stared at him for a long, defiant moment, then let go of the gantry with his remaining hand.

And fell into the endless void.

/-

_Garbage Landing Bay_

_Bespin_

"You should do a hyperdrive check as soon as possible," Jade suggested even as she studied the holomap provided by the Baron. Bespin was large and confusing. How would she find Skywalker, even with the rather wobbly bond between them?

"It was fixed by my men," Lando said indignantly.

"It's common to deactivate the hyperdrive in captured vessels if Imperial enemies are on the loose," she replied impatiently.

Calrissian groaned, "That makes sense. Given what chaos Han has inflicted on my ship, who knows what they could have sabotaged ...?"

Jade tuned the man out and focused her attention on Princess Leia. She was not letting the woman come with her. Skywalker obviously loved Leia Organa dearly and Jade was probably going to her death. No way was she ...

"Luke?" Princess Leia suddenly asked, her face turning toward the atmosphere outside the landing bay.

"What?" Mara asked in bewilderment.

"We have to go!" Organa suddenly snapped. "I know where Luke is!"

"How could you ...?" Lando demanded, even as Mara focused all her attention on Skywalker.

"_Hear me, Leia! Hear me, Mara!"_

"I hear him too!" Jade yelped. "Come on!"

/

_Weather Vane_

_Bespin_

_A few minutes later_

He was almost unconscious from exhaustion and horror but the anguish in his arm kept him awake. He was weakening steadily, though. He could not hold onto this fragile vane of transparisteel for much longer.

"_Luke!"_ he heard through the Force.

He looked down in astonishment and incredulous relief.

The _Falcon _was here.

/-

_Cockpit_

_A few minutes later_

"Oh, Leia," Luke gasped, clasping the princess to himself. He was so wobbly he could barely stand and his face was a battered mess. But he was alive. Leia's eyes filled with tears.

The _Falcon_ shook under enemy fire and Mara stepped forward, "I'll take him to the med droid, if that's all right."

"Please," Leia murmured, turning back to the cockpit.

Mara supported the battered youth down the corridor and into a nearby cabin where the med droid waited patiently. Luke's skin was pale, and when she lowered him down on the bed she noticed ...

"Oh Luke."

His right hand had been severed cleanly by a lightsaber.

_/-_

_Cockpit_

_Millennium Falcon_

"Jade's right," Calrissian snapped, even as he angled the _Falcon_ away from the giant Star Destroyer looming in the near distance. "There's a fault in the hyperdrive."

"Can you fix it?" Leia demanded, keeping her voice under control with difficulty.

"I hope so. The schematics are shaky thanks to Han's fiddling around with the _Falcon_ since she changed hands."

R2D2, who was huddled in the corridor outside the cockpit, suddenly being twittering profusely.

"Mistress Leia, Mistress Leia!"

"Yes, C-3PO?" the woman managed. She did hope the protocol droid, whose heap of parts had been placed ignominiously in the corner of the cockpit, had something useful to say.

"Mistress Leia, R2D2 just told me that Cloud City's central computer said something about the hyperdrive being deactivated!"

The princess shot Chewbacca a startled look and then raced out the cockpit door.

/

_Bridge of the Executor_

"Luke," Darth Vader called out through the Force.

_"Father!"_

"Son, come with me ..."

/

_Luke's cabin_

Millennium Falcon

"Father!" Luke said suddenly, tilting his head and staring fixedly at the ceiling.

Mara's steady movements stopped abruptly and she stared in bewilderment at her friend.

"Ben," he moaned, apparently unaware of her presence. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Jade finished attaching the cuff over Luke's severed arm even as she bit her cheek hard.

So _that_ was the big secret about Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader.

/

_Cockpit_

_Millennium Falcon_

"Ok, we've fixed it!" Leia yelled through the comlink. "Punch it!"

Lando breathed a silent prayer and pushed the hyperdrive control. A moment later, the _Millennium Falcon_ leaped triumphantly into hyperspace.

/

_Author Note: This will be like 4 or 5 chapters total. A plot bunny attacked me. It will diverge from canon significantly in the next chapters._


	2. Chapter 2

_Main Cabin_

_Millennium Falcon_

_In hyperspace en route to the Rebel Rendezvous _

_20 minutes later_

"How is he?" Leia Organa asked worriedly as Mara stepped out of Luke's cabin.

Mara noted, for the first time, the dark circles under the other woman's eyes. The princess had obviously suffered greatly while in Vader's cruel clutches.

"He's asleep now after a heavy dose of meds. And he's ... he's Ok," she replied slowly. "He'll survive. Cuts, bruises, a minor concussion, a couple of cracked ribs and …"

"Yes?" The dark haired girl asked, her eyes filled with trepidation.

"He's missing his right hand. It's a clean amputation so I'm sure he lost it in his duel with Vader."

Leia sucked in a horrified breath and she lifted her own right hand to hold it hard against her mouth. She felt, briefly, a strong urge to throw up.

"Poor Luke," she murmured softly.

Mara nodded tightly. She had experienced many injuries in her training days and more than a few broken bones during her missions, but she'd never lost a limb. There was something horrifyingly visceral about it.

She noted that Organa was staring at her intently and she felt herself stiffen.

"I suppose I should explain more about who I am," she began, only to stop as the other woman lifted a restraining hand.

"Later, please," Leia urged. "You saved Han for us and I trust you. And we want to unfreeze Han as soon as possible."

"That seems wise."

Mara was pleased with the delay. Should she say anything about Luke's distressed mutterings before they escaped into hyperspace?

No, she shouldn't. Maybe she was confused and if she wasn't, if Darth Vader was claiming to be Luke's father — well, that was Skywalker's secret to tell.

"Madam," the med droid stated, exiting Luke's cabin. "The patient Skywalker is asleep and resting peacefully. His injuries, while serious, are not life threatening. I would recommend that a human caretaker watch over him in addition to his astromech droid. I am prepared to assist in removing Captain Solo from carbonite now."

"I'll watch Luke," Mara offered hastily. The other woman nodded gratefully and turned toward a cabin in the back where Han Solo waited for freedom.

/

_Han's cabin_

It was fire and it was ice. It was wind and frozen stillness. It was the sound of Chindinkalu flutes and terrifying silence.

Han Solo took a gasping breath of air as the carbonite melted away from his face.

"Han, it's me, Leia," the beloved voice said reassuringly. "You're Ok, you're safe."

"Leia," he gasped, then blinked his eyes in terror. He couldn't see her!

"I can't see."

"It is common for the patient to experience temporary blindness," a mechanical voice stated. A droid?

"It's all right, Han," Leia's soothing voice continued, and now he could feel her arm grabbing his left side and heaving him upwards. On his right side, he felt something strong and very furry lift him.

Chewbacca.

"We're just getting you settled in bed," Leia continued, even as Chewie roared in agreement. Han Solo found himself on something gloriously soft and comfortable, with the soothing smell that he associated with his precious _Falcon._

Or was he hallucinating?

"Where ... where am I?"

"We're on the _Falcon,_ Han. You've been frozen for less than a day. The med droid says you'll experience some hibernation sickness but it should be minimized because you weren't in long."

Han Solo's confused brain struggled to make some sense of this. His last memory was of Leia, her beautiful face contorted with grief, as he was lowered into the red glow of the carbon freeze chamber.

"On the _Falcon_?" he mumbled.

"Yes, and we're safe, Han. You, me, Luke, Chewie, Lando, even the droids. We escaped from Bespin. We're safe."

"Lando!"

Solo contemplated this for a long moment.

"Soon as I can see, I'm punching that traitor in the nose."

/—

_Luke's cabin_

_Millennium Falcon_

_In hyperspace_

_3 hours later_

Mara made another quick scan of Skywalker's vital signs and rose to her feet with a soft groan. The injured man was sleeping heavily, which was all to the good. He needed rest to recover from his ordeal, to find strength to face what was probably a challenging future.

The small R2D2 unit was hovering near the young man, and the med droid had returned. Mara didn't really need to be here anymore and she was tired and thirsty and hungry. And she _really _had to use the refresher.

"I'll head out now," she said softly. "Let me know if he needs anything from me."

"As you wish," the med droid replied professionally.

R2 swiveled his domed head and beeped softly. She didn't speak binary but she fondly hoped his booping was appreciative.

Quietly, Mara left Skywalker's cabin and found the refresher a few doors down. After using the facility, she exited with a spring in her step and walked into the main cabin area in search of food and drink.

To her vague surprise, the only occupant of the rather dilapidated common area was Leia Organa. Where was everyone else?

The woman was leaning back in a chair, her eyes fixed on the ceiling, and she held a cup in her hand. At Mara's entrance, though, she lowered her head and smiled wearily.

"I hope your leaving him means he's doing reasonably well?"

"Sleeping soundly," Mara agreed. She walked over to a small galley and started opening cupboards. Ration bars, more ration bars, Corellian ale, some elderly bantha jerky. Wonderful.

"The bantha jerky is better than it looks," Organa commented with amusement in her voice.

"Bantha jerky it is. And I'll take some ale if that's Ok."

"I would imagine Han will gladly gift you the entire bottle," Organa replied drily, "considering that you almost certainly saved him for a horrible death."

"My pleasure."

Mara filled a tumbler half full of whiskey and dropped onto a seat near a silent dejarik board. She tossed the drink down and sputtered slightly as it burned her throat.

"That's potent."

"Yes."

The two women exchanged thoughtful glances.

"So who are you, how did you meet Luke, and how did you end up saving our skins here on Bespin?" the princess asked.

Jade chuckled. Nothing like getting right to the point.

"Well," she started, and paused for a moment. She wondered how this would go over.

"Until a few weeks ago," she continued carefully, "I was an agent of Emperor Palpatine himself."

The dark haired girl choked slightly at this but waved a hand, "Ok, that statement requires some explanation."

"Yes. It's rather a long story, but I was ... I was taken as a small child from my home and brought to a facility on Imperial Center. For many years I was molded and trained into the perfect tool of the Emperor. I was called the Emperor's Hand, or one of them, anyway. I thought I was something special but I know now that there were many of us."

It was impossible to keep the bitterness out of her voice. She rose to her feet and filled another tumbler full of ale, though she made a mental note to drink it more slowly now. The last thing she needed was a hangover.

Jade sat down and leaned back, closing her eyes. The seat was smelly and the krayt dragon leather had seen better days, but it was comfortable. She realized, vaguely, that she was very tired.

"Palpatine doesn't entirely trust Vader," she continued, keeping her eyes closed. "My master assigned me to spy on Vader and inform him immediately if Skywalker was captured. I was sent to the _Avenger_, one of the Star Destroyers in Death Squadron, as a random TIE pilot though I was assigned a specific, augmented TIE of my own, one with a hyperdrive. When the Empire found the Rebel base on Hoth, I was sent out with a squadron of TIE's to mop up any small craft seeking to escape the planet."

Mara opened her eyes and leaned forward now, fixing her gaze on the princess whose face was a mixture of sorrow and curiosity. She had, no doubt, lost personal friends on Hoth.

"I sensed Skywalker leaving in his X-wing," the redhead continued softly. "I'm a Force sensitive, though not an especially strong one. Nothing like Skywalker. But I was trained to be aware of other Force sensitives so I knew he was in his ship. While Vader and Death Squadron pursued the _Millennium Falcon_, I tracked him into hyperspace and followed him, ending up in orbit around ... around the planet Dagobah."

"Dagobah?" Leia demanded in a puzzled tone. "Luke was supposed to join with the fleet at the rendezvous. What in all the nebula was he doing on Dagobah?"

"Finding an ancient Jedi Master named Yoda," Mara continued drily.

Leia's mouth formed an understanding "O" but she didn't speak.

"Like I said, I wasn't trained much in the Force but Palpatine did personally train me to use my particular area of giftedness. I have a remarkable ability to communicate with him from anywhere in the galaxy using the Force. I came out of hyperspace and tried to reach my Master. My former master, I should say."

Leia's eyes were wide but she remained silent.

"I couldn't reach him," Mara continued softly. "Palpatine, I mean. Something was blocking me. I ... I could have left but somehow I felt a strong need to go down onto the planet. I did so and met Master Yoda, who had frozen my bond with the Emperor. Over the next week, I talked to the Master when he had time and though he's an odd individual, I became convinced that … that I had been used all my life. Worse than that …"

She looked away now and swallowed convulsively.

"Worse than that, Yoda sent me to a strange place, a cave, where I saw a vision of my early life, of my parents murdered as I was dragged away by the Empire's agents. I had forgotten all that. I also saw, and remembered, the vicious training of the potential Hands, all Force Sensitives, forced to train to exhaustion and even to death. No, I was nothing special to Palpatine, just a tool to be used."

Leia Organa rose and walked over to sit down beside her.

"I am sorry, Mara Jade."

She shook her head fiercely, "It is what it is, Princess. Yoda was mostly busy with Skywalker, training him in the ways of the Force. I was allowed to hang on and watch some of the time, but more importantly, Yoda helped me sever my connection with the Emperor permanently. When Skywalker started having visions of your capture and ensuing agony, he insisted on going to Bespin to try to rescue you. I feared for him and decided I would go along. He pleaded with me to help you escape and ... here we are."

"Indeed, here we are. We are most grateful, Jade."

"Any time," Mara replied, then added, "except really, I would recommend that you avoid getting captured by Vader again."

"That's the plan."

Leia stood up now and ran a hand over her braids, which had come loose slightly, "I'm exhausted and you are too. We should both get some rest while Han and Luke are asleep. It will take a couple of days to get back to the Fleet."

Mara nodded, then spoke just as the other woman reached the corridor door.

"Princess Leia?"

Organa turned around, "Yes?"

"So … you heard Luke through the Force. Has that ever happened before?"

"No. Pretty weird though I'm so thankful I did. You heard him too, right?"

"Yes, after you alerted me that he was calling. But I've had training in that sort of thing. I wouldn't have thought a non- Force Sensitive could do such a thing. Unless you are?"

Leia chuckled and rolled her eyes, "Not at all. I'm just a normal person who got lucky, I guess. Good night, Jade."

"Good night, Princess."

Mara remained seated for a long moment, her brow furrowed in confusion. It really was extraordinary that an untrained woman with no Force Sensitivity could do what Organa had just done.

Bizarre.

Amazing.

Unlikely.

/—-

_Luke's Cabin_

_Hours later_

Luke was aware first of sounds. The soft rush of air, the quiet repetitive cycle of his own breathing, the slight creaks of R2D2 next to him.

Next were the smells. His clothes still retained the delicate aroma of Dagobian swamp grass, and his skin, swollen and torn, smelled of blood.

And Mara was here as well, he knew. He knew her smell, one of engine grease, feminine sweat, and a slight hint of blue milk lotion.

He opened his eyes to find her staring at his face.

"Mara."

"Skywalker."

Her expression was neutral, but he could see the fatigue in her eyes, in the lines around her mouth.

"Are you Ok?" he asked softly.

"I'm fine."

"And Leia? Han?"

"Everyone's good. We even managed to retrieve Calrissian, who apparently sold your friends out to Vader and then thought better of it and helped them escape."

Luke lifted his hand, his only hand at the moment, and covered his eyes.

"Can't really blame him," he muttered softly. "It's hard to say no to Vader."

"But you did."

He looked at her now, his expression tight.

"Did you hear …"

"What you said before we went into hyperspace? Yes."

Tears were in his eyes now, and his face was contorted with grief.

"Mara …"

She put her hand out and touched his arm, "I'm sorry, Skywalker."

Luke sat up and swung his legs onto the floor, hunching his body to protect his injured right arm.

"Maybe he was lying," he said without much conviction.

"Maybe he was."

He stared at her, "But you don't think so."

His friend sighed and put her hand out to touch his knee. Idly, she noticed that his pants were torn in multiple places, and she could see multiple abrasions. What had Vader done to him?

"I think," Mara replied softly, "that Darth Vader, Lord of the Sith, Emperor's Right Hand, Scourge of the Galaxy, is obsessed with you because you're his son. It makes the most sense based on the data we have."

Luke chuckled bitterly, "So we're going with data analysis here, Mara? What am I going to do? If it is true, then everything I know is a lie. I am a lie. I am not ... I'm not Luke Skywalker, son of Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Knight. I'm the son of … of a monster, Mara. A monster. He captured my friends, tortured them, and sent one to what would have been a certain and ugly death. Mara, he took my hand."

Jade shook her head, leaned over, and gave him a hug.

"I'm sorry."

_Author Note: Many thanks to those of your reading this fic, reviewing when you have time, following it or me. And many thanks to my wonderful editor and husband!_


	3. Chapter 3

_Medical Frigate_

_Liberty_

_3 days later_

Solemnly, Luke Skywalker twitched the fingers of his new hand, one after the other.

It felt odd, of course. It looked like a normal human hand, though less scarred and roughened than the one which had tumbled into the void along with the lightsaber that had been his father's.

Had Vader had any emotional response while battling a man who bore his own weapon from long ago?

Had it mattered that the man in question was his own son?

He felt tears in his eyes and blinked them back firmly. He had cried off and on since Bespin and would probably cry more but for now, he had to decide what to do. Should he go back to Master Yoda to complete his training? Should he stay here with the Alliance and serve as the scattered remnants of the Fleet sought to recover from the disaster on Hoth?

Should he ... should he tell his friends the truth?

He dreaded the expression on Leia's face if he confessed the reality of his parentage. Vader had tortured her not once but twice, had clutched her with harsh hands while her planet exploded before her eyes. She hated the Sith Lord more than anyone else in the galaxy.

The door to the med bay slid open; his friends were here.

Han had totally recovered from hibernation sickness and Luke knew, because Leia had told him, that bacta had quickly healed the burns from the scan grid.

Leia herself had also been deliberately burned on the arms, though her injuries were less severe than the Corellian's. And Chewbacca was physically well. His torture had consisted of high pitched squealing in his cell on Bespin; it had been exquisitely painful to the sensitive ears of a Wookiee, but thankfully had caused no lasting damage.

Even Lando, whose eyes had seen terrible things in this last week, had perked up enough to display apparently typical swagger.

"Hi Kid!" Han said with a grin, sauntering over to slap his friend gently on the arm. "Good to see you looking better."

Luke knew he did look better. His face still wore bruises, but they were much diminished. His battered body was much recovered after a long dunk in bacta.

His heart, his soul, would probably never recover.

"I need to talk to you about my confrontation with Vader," he said abruptly, glancing around at his friends. This room was private and he realized he absolutely had to tell them now, not later.

Solo looked puzzled and worried, and Leia frowned.

"Luke," she asked gently, "are you sure you want to talk about it now? You've been through quite an ordeal."

"Now," Luke said firmly, sitting up in his bed and drawing his knees up into a comfortable position, "and you all need to sit down for this."

There was a worried pause and then his friends distributed themselves on the available seating. Leia sat down at the edge of his bed and stared at him, her eyes dark with concern.

"Vader and I fought on Bespin," he began, keeping his gaze fixed on the floor. "He wanted to drop me into carbon freeze, which I'm sure you know."

"Yeah," Lando chimed in softly. "He said he wanted to freeze you for your journey to the Emperor."

Luke winced slightly at this and made a mental note to ask Lando about his other conversations with the Dark Lord.

"I, uh, fell in and then managed to jump out before I was encased in carbonite."

Han whistled aloud, "That was quite a jump."

"Force assisted leap, yeah."

He leaned back now and closed his eyes for a long moment, breathing deeply to calm himself.

"We fought more. He totally outmatched me. He was toying with me. Eventually he ... he cornered me on a walkway that hung out over one of Cloud City's abysses and he cut off my hand."

He was aware that Leia's hand was on his socked foot. It felt soothing. He opened his eyes and looked at her. Her gaze was sympathetic and loving, though not _that_ kind of loving. It was obvious that a few weeks aboard the _Falcon_ had cemented Han and Leia's burgeoning romance.

He was happy for them. He really was. Especially given his parentage, he didn't deserve someone pure like Leia Organa of Alderaan.

"So there I was, backed up over an apparently endless void and Vader told me that he wanted me to join him, that he would train me and we could end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy."

Solo made some dramatic retching noises in his throat before saying, "I assume you told him to stuff it, Kid. Like you would join him after all that he's done to you and us, not to mention your dad."

Luke swallowed convulsively and forced himself to continue.

"I did tell him no, that I'd never join him. And then he told me that didn't kill my father. He said that ... that he_ is_ my father."

Dead silence.

Luke kept his gaze on his own hands, one natural, one artificial, and counted five breaths before lifting his gaze to look at his friends.

Not surprisingly, all wore similar expressions of shock, dismay, horror, disbelief, or some combination thereof.

"No way!" Solo finally sputtered. "That is completely ridiculous, Luke! He's just lying to you, trying to trick you. You can't believe that!"

"I think I do believe him," Luke replied numbly. "It makes sense, it does. My teacher, the one I was training with, was odd about my father and Mara thinks it explains his obsession with me ..."

"She can't truly know, Luke," Leia argued, her own eyes full of dread. "I know you trust her and I do too, but it's all a guess on her part. Right? I mean, she didn't hear anything from her, uh, former employer?"

"No," Luke replied quickly. He wasn't sure if Solo and Chewie knew of Mara's previous Imperial affiliations and that required its own lengthy explanation. Now wasn't the time for her own horrible history.

"No," he continued more calmly. "I did hear him through the Force when we were escaping. He called out to me."

He looked away now and his eyes filled with tears, "He said '_Son, come with me ..._'"

"I talked to you too, Luke," Leia stated firmly, slipping closer to her dear friend. "He's a trained Force Sensitive. If I could hear you calling, so could he. He was just trying to trick you, Luke!"

"I know why you were able to hear Skywalker, Princess Leia," Mara Jade stated, walking through the door of the medbay.

The occupants of the room all started slightly at the woman's entrance. Luke smiled with some difficulty. His life was a wreck but at least this amazing woman ...

Belatedly, he noted that Mara's Force Sense was generating shock and incredulity.

"What's going on, Mara?" he asked worriedly, struggling to turn his attention away from the grim conversation of his origins.

Mara bit her lip, uncharacteristically uncertain. Should she talk about this right here, right now? Maybe? Maybe not?

"Um, I found something out," she continued rather weakly. "Uh, it's rather sensitive ..."

"Spit it out, Mara," Leia said wearily. "I doubt anything you can say would compare to the shock of Vader's lying words."

Jade nodded slowly and turned her gaze on Luke, "I think maybe he was lying, Luke."

"You said ..." Luke began.

"I know I did. Let me explain."

The woman took a step to one side, then a step back, then turned to look at Leia Organa.

"Princess, I was really confused that you could hear Luke through the Force. That just seemed impossible for a non Force Sensitive. Then I thought, maybe you are a mild Force Sensitive, but even then it didn't make sense. Because you've had no training at all and Force calls take some training."

She paused and Leia lifted her brows, "Well, I'm not a Force Sensitive, I certainly haven't had any training, and I did hear him, so I guess it was just a fluke."

Mara shook her head even as she compressed her lips, "I just wanted to rule something out so I told the med droid who treated both of you on the _Millennium Falcon_ to check if you and Skywalker have any kind of genetic match. The thing is, there were a couple of siblings in the Emperor's Hand program who were able to communicate through the Force without training. I thought, well, we don't know who Skywalker's mother is at the very least. Maybe, crazily, Luke and Organa are related somehow."

Luke sat up abruptly, "Are we? Are we like second cousins or something?"

"Closer than that," Mara replied gravely, holding out the datapad.

Luke frowned and reached forward, taking the device from her hand. Leia scooted next to him and they both gazed down at the screen.

"_Genetic Analysis_

_Subject 1: Luke Skywalker_

_Subject 2: Leia Organa_

_Designated operation: genetic cross match._

_Paternal match: 99.995%_

_Maternal match: 99.996%_

_Results: 99.999% chance that subjects are full siblings."_

Luke stared at the words until they danced before his eyes, then turned his attention on Leia.

"Uh," he murmured.

"Um," Leia muttered back.

"What does it say?" Solo demanded impatiently.

"Says, um, it says we're full blooded siblings, like, uh, like ..."

"Twins," Leia finished, her eyes wide, "we both have a birthday right around the original Empire Day."

There was silence throughout the med bay and then Solo began shaking his head, "That makes no sense. Jade, you must have messed up, or the med droid did."

"I didn't mess up, Solo," Mara snapped back. "I was so stunned by the results that I, er, found some random hairs lying around on the _Falcon _and had the hairs tested independently by another med droid. Compared them to my hair, and yours, and Chewbacca's just to make sure the stupid med droids didn't have some kind of aberrant genetic testing program. Same result. Skywalker and Organa are full blooded siblings. Not that I can explain that. I mean, what, did the Organas have twins and maybe, Luke, they realized you were a strong Force Sensitive and they shipped you off to a 5th rate farm on a 9th rate Outer Rim planet to keep you safe? I mean, it's weird but what other explanation is there?"

"I was adopted," Leia Organa stated, her eyes blank.

"Oh," Mara said.

There was a very long pause.

"So," Han finally said, forming his words with care. "Luke and Leia are twins. Vader claims to be Luke's father. Which sounds like garbage to me but what do I know? If he is your father, Kid, why would he ignore Leia as his daughter?"

He cast an apologetic look at Leia, who cringed at the very idea that she was the progeny of Darth Vader.

"Maybe he doesn't know about her," Jade commented softly. "I guess there is no way to really tell, is there?"

"There is one living individual who knows for sure," Luke pointed out, his blue eyes meeting his friend's green ones.

"Time for a trip to see the green troll, huh?"


	4. Chapter 4

/-

_Yoda's Hut_

_Dagobah_

_3 days later_

"Master Yoda, is Leia my twin sister?"

The green eyes of the ancient Master widened in astonishment. He had truly not expected that question.

"Your sister she is," he replied, trying not to let relief color his tone too much. Far better to discuss sibling than parental relationships.

"Why didn't you tell us?" the youth demanded indignantly.

"Separated you, we did, to protect you from the Emperor. Safer it was."

"She kissed me, you know!"

Master Yoda shot Leia a horrified look. Really, these Skywalker women and their inappropriate gestures of physical affection!

"It wasn't a romantic kiss," Leia argued, her face pink with embarrassment.

"It sure felt romantic," Luke grumbled irritably.

"I was just trying to annoy Han," she explained meekly.

"I knew it!" Han's disembodied voice chortled from the window. Leia chuckled and corkscrewed around to lean out the window slightly.

"I confess that even then, you were my one and only, Han. I just didn't know it yet," she murmured. A moment later, the sound of a rather passionate kiss filled the air.

"This is ridiculous," Mara pointed out to Luke. She was curled up in a corner of Yoda's small hut, the Skywalker twins were sitting along an outer wall, and both Solo and Chewbacca were hovering outside because they just didn't fit inside.

"I know. But there isn't much room in here."

"Small I am," Yoda stated firmly. "My home for me it is, not big, clumsy humans."

Mara chuckled softly at this. Leia, at least, was small and petite for a human.

Leia pulled back inside and smoothed away her besotted smile. She looked deliberately at Luke and nodded.

"Master Yoda, is Darth Vader our father?" Luke asked softly.

The old master choked, his eyes flaring wide with amazement and surprise.

"Er …," he said.

"That sounds like a yes to me," Mara muttered.

There was a long pause as the three humans glared at Yoda.

"Your father he is," the elf said, his ears unfurling in dismay. "Told you, did he, young Skywalker?"

"Yes," Luke replied, his face filled with sorrow.

"Unexpected this is, and unfortunate."

"It is not unfortunate that we know the truth now, Master Yoda," Leia snapped indignantly. "We really really, really needed to know this! It stinks. It's horrible. But it is vital, critical information."

"I can't believe you didn't tell Luke before he rushed off to Bespin," Mara chimed in angrily. "What if he had beaten Vader? Not that that was likely, but what if!?"

"Yeah," Han's voice came in through the window. "Were you hoping that he'd commit unknowing patricide? That's harsh."

Yoda's green eyes were wide in astonishment at this barrage of criticism.

"Not Anakin Skywalker anymore, he is. Vader and Vader alone. Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny."

"It was a dreadful shock to Luke," Leia pointed out, her hand reaching protectively for Luke's prosthetic one. "Of all the times he was in danger of turning to the Dark Side, having his long lost father turn out to be a psycho Sith Lord who was gonna kill him if he didn't join him, well, it was just a bad scene. You should have told him."

"Expected him to tell Luke I did not," Yoda explained doggedly. "Sith Lords care not about progeny."

Mara frowned at this. She disliked and feared Vader but she really thought at some level, Vader did care. Luke had discussed his clash with Vader in great detail and the Dark Lord clearly really wanted his son at his side. Once Luke had evaded the carbon freeze trap, the typical next step would have been for Vader to put an end to the young man. He hadn't, though, he hadn't …

"I think maybe at some weird, unhealthy level, he might care a little," she muttered aloud.

Leia snorted and Yoda shook his head fiercely.

"I agree with Mara," Luke argued. "You weren't there. I was. He was pleading with me to join him. When he called for me through the Force, there was real desire here. Don't get me wrong, he's a horrible, rotten father. But he's not indifferent to me."

"Wants your power, he does," his old master insisted gloomily.

There was a long silence and then Leia spoke, "Master Yoda, what should we do now? Should Luke continue his training? Should I be trained?"

"I don't have my lightsaber anymore," Luke blurted out suddenly, his eyes filled with embarrassing wetness. His only connection to his father, lost with his hand, lost to his own father ...

Yoda shot the youth a sympathetic glance. He forgot at times that while Skywalker was old for a padawan, he was also very young. This whole situation had obviously taken its toll on the young man's psyche. Which was rather disturbing, given his power.

"Use my saber you can, for training," he stated. "Have crystals I do for lightsabers of your own, when time is right."

He turned to Leia now and probed her carefully with the Force. She too was strong, stronger than he had imagined. She shielded naturally and her brightness was hidden from view unless one searched for it directly.

"Train you too I will," he responded. Why not? Why not train two incredibly old (for padawans) Skywalkers with attachment and trauma. Why not? What could possibly go wrong?

"What about Mara?" Luke demanded.

Yoda turned a long suffering gaze on the former Emperor's Hand. They were going to drive him to an earlier grave. And he was old already.

"Train her too I will."

/—

_Dagobah_

_1 month later_

Mara leaped through the jungle like a particularly enthusiastic ash rabbit.

She had thought she was a weakling in the Force with only one tremendous ability, that of hearing the voice of the Emperor across the parsecs.

It turned out that, no, she was reasonably strong in the Force. That, combined with her own work ethic and prior physical training, meant she had made great strides in using the Force in the last month.

Not that she was close to the power of the Skywalker twins. Mara was no expert, but she could see that they were in their own realm where Force power came. That was no huge surprise, given their parentage.

But she was Ok with that, she really was. No longer was she in competition with other Force Sensitives. That had been an aspect of her early training which she had forgotten – no doubt the Emperor had erased those early memories. Those who excelled in their brutal training had been rewarded. Those who failed were punished severely.

The Skywalkers, plus their friends, were a much more welcoming crowd. Her help in getting them all safely out of Bespin had brought her into their little circle more quickly than expected and Jade found she liked it. She liked it very much.

She stopped her leaping and began walking, dragging in deep draughts of moist air as she approached the _Millennium Falcon_. The incredibly battered freighter, which looked like it shouldn't be able to lift off, much less outrun Imperial Star Destroyers, crouched safely on a small bit of land which wasn't overrun with mud and bogs. Skywalker had helped Solo pilot the ship down, knowing all too well how easy it was to sink a ship into a swamp.

Briefly, Mara wondered if Yoda could lift the _Falcon _out of a muddy pool. Maybe? The old Jedi was powerful, though she thought the three young Force sensitives were rather wearing the poor little guy out.

She ran a quick hand over her brow, knocking off the sweat dribbling from her hair, and walked up the ramp and into the main cabin. She really needed a sonic shower ...

"Master Yoda," Leia Organa was asking her master, "was Padme Amidala our mother?"

Mara stopped abruptly. She had obviously walked into some emotionally charged scene as Master Yoda was standing on the dejarik board, looking nervous, and the Skywalker twins plus Solo plus Chewbacca were standing around looking agitated.

The redheaded woman took a quick step back, worried she was intruding, but Skywalker caught her eye and smiled slightly, though his face was tight with stress. He gestured to her welcomingly, and she stepped further into the room.

"Your mother she is," Yoda finally said in a weary tone.

"Padme Amidala, Queen of Naboo, then Senator of the Old Republic, was married to Anakin Skywalker and is our mother," Leia stated aloud, her eyes wide with incredulity.

"Married I am not sure," Yoda replied.

"They were married," Luke and Leia said simultaneously.

Yoda abruptly leaped off the dejarik table and onto the floor and marched toward the exit of the _Falcon_, "A rest I need, a rest."

"We're talking more about this later," Leia called after him, then grabbed Han Solo's arm and pulled him toward a nearby seat. The couple dropped down and Han embraced her gently.

"Hard stuff, huh?" he asked softly.

Luke gestured to another seat and Mara obediently came over and sat next to the young Jedi.

"So ... what happened?" Jade asked rather nervously.

Leia lifted her face and wiped her tears, "Oh Mara, this morning has been crazy and intense and I don't even know where to start."

"Who was Padme Amidala?" Luke asked. "That's a good place to start."

His twin stared at him in surprise, then nodded slowly, "I suppose you wouldn't know, would you? Well, she's the one in our vision, obviously. Our mother. But she was also a remarkable politician during the Clone Wars and a dear friend of Bail Organa. Elected queen of Naboo at the age of 14, elected senator of Naboo to the Senate before the Empire rose to power. I only know about her because as I said, she was a dear senatorial colleague to my father. I've read some of her speeches and she was amazing. And obviously when she died, the Organas took me as their own."

"Vision?" Mara asked, feeling very lost.

Luke reached out with his (prosthetic) right hand and grasped her left one.

"Leia and I went to the cave today, and we saw a joint vision of ... I guess you could say our parents' romance, and marriage, and then our father's Fall and our mother's death in ... in childbirth, Mara. I mean, not all the details but like scenes of them that showed the basic idea."

"It was like when you start watching a new season of _As the Galaxy Turns_, they always have a quick review of the previous season," Leia stated. "It was like that. We got a montage of scenes which described the basic plot."

The other sentients turned astonished looks at the princess, who blushed.

"_As The Galaxy Turns_?" Luke demanded incredulously. "Really?"

"Hey," Leia riposted. "I have a very stressful job and I work hard. I need a little down time. What do you think I'm going to watch, shockball tournaments?"

"I love me some shockball," Han said, and Chewbacca roared agreeably.

"Anything would be better than a space holodrama," Luke said, looking vaguely ill. "I mean, those things are yucky. I broke my leg in a speeder accident when I was 13 and I had to make a few trips to a doctor in Anchorhead. The medical facility had a holo on all the time and it was usually some ghastly space opera. I'd hide in the corner with my hands over my ears."

"I wouldn't expect a backwards farmboy to appreciate space drama," Leia said in a snooty voice, then laughed out loud at his startled look. "Seriously, Luke, everyone's different. I like them."

"It sheds a whole new light on your personality," her twin replied in a solemn tone.

"So," Mara interrupted with a fake cough, "the vision?"

The twins were immediately grave and Luke took up the tale, "Our parents, uh, Anakin and Padme – well, they met when our father was really young. I guess he was younger than her by a few years."

"So you think that cute little urchin was really Darth Vader?" Leia asked, shaking her head in disbelief.

"No, I think he was Anakin Skywalker."

"He did look a lot like you must have as a kid," Leia said with a sigh.

"And you look so much like our mother, Leia."

"So then like 10 years later they were in space battles and land battles and fought wild beasts ..."

"Really?" Han interrupted in surprise.

"Yes, they seemed like an adventurous pair," Leia concurred.

"And they got married," Luke continued. "I'd say pretty young, like at ages 20 and 24?"

"Then," Leia resumed, picking up the story, "a couple years went by and she got pregnant with us. Padme surreptitiously told, uh, Anakin about the pregnancy behind one of the pillars of the Great Hall on Coruscant. It was some kind of big secret for some reason. Master Yoda didn't know they were married so they kept that concealed, which just seems weird."

"We'll have to ask the Master about that, but did you actually recognize where they talked about our pregnancy?" Luke demanded in surprise.

"Definitely. I walked by there many times when I was a senator."

"Wow."

"So then I guess Anakin started having nightmares about our mother dying in childbirth? There was this scene when he said he wouldn't lose Padme like he lost his mother. Luke, any ideas what that was about?"

Her brother looked sad and nodded, "Yeah, our grandmother, her name was Shmi, was taken by Tusken Raiders on Tatooine. They killed her, rather unpleasantly I believe. Her grave was on the north side of the farm."

There was a pause in the story as the twins exchanged a long, grave, solemn look.

"He turned to the Dark Side," Luke said, finally. "He killed the Jedi and pledged his allegiance to Palpatine because he seemed to think that through the Dark Side, he could save our mother from death."

"Our mother was very upset, not surprisingly. Padme Amidala was a champion of democracy and a noble woman," Leia continued, her voice dropping even lower. "They met somewhere, a lava planet, and they argued and Anakin, or Vader now, I guess, choked her. Kenobi interfered and there was a horrible fight between the two men. Kenobi won and ..."

Leia burst into tears.

Han leaned over and pulled her closer, "It's Ok, Leia. It's Ok."

The princess wiped her face quickly and shook her head fiercely, "It's not Ok, Han. I hate Vader. I hate him. And yet, I'm sorry for him. At some level I am truly sorry for him. How can I possible have sympathy for that monster?"

"Maybe because Kenobi chopped off his 3 remaining limbs and left him to burn to death on the shores of a lava flow?" Luke continued, his voice bitter. "That was unconscionable. Next time I see Obi-Wan, I'm going to yell at him."

Mara looked around the cabin in search of white wispiness, but there was nothing.

"He might be hiding from you," she suggested drily. "That's one advantage of being a ghost."

She saw Han shake his head at this mention of ghosts, but Leia continued now.

"It wasn't enough that ... that he was burned so horribly and then put in that life support suit. We both saw it, didn't we, Luke?"

Her brother nodded, his own face sorrowful, and Leia went on slowly, "When the droids had done their work and he was encased in that ghastly suit, some of his first words were, '_Where is Padme? Is she safe? Is she all right?_' Even after he turned to the Dark Side, his primary concern was for her. He attacked her in anger and yet he really did ... did ..."

"Love her," Luke finished. He looked around at his friends, and there were tears in his own eyes, "Palpatine told him ... told him that Vader had killed Padme. He was horrified and distraught and so ... so broken."

"And the Emperor lied, obviously," Leia pointed out. "We saw that too – Kenobi brought our mother to a medical facility and she died after giving birth to the two of us. Because of a broken heart, they said. Whatever that means."

Solo was actually rocking the princess very slightly and she appreciated the soothing motion. She reached out with the Force and called a (mostly) clean rag to her hand and wiped her face.

She then began chortling in slight hysterics, "I mean really, it's so awful that it's ... it's almost, it's not funny ..."

Everyone looked at her in surprise and concern, and she found herself laughing harder even as she cried.

"All that love. All that passion and commitment and adoration. He did cause her death in childbirth, apparently because he turned to the Dark Side to save her and then she died of a broken heart. And anything that was still good in him was lost and he became the tyrant and murderer that he is today."

"The med droids just guessed that she died of a broken heart," Luke replied, gently removing his hand from Mara's and walking over to kneel in front of his shattered twin. "We don't know what killed her. But Vader didn't directly kill her on Mustafar. He must have thought his child was dead at his hand, too, which is probably why he didn't search for me until after I destroyed the Death Star."

"And he obviously didn't know there were twins because everyone at the med facility was surprised," Leia continued, her body and soul calming.

The two gazed at one another and then Luke rolled to his feet, "I think he really does care about me. I wonder if ... if I go to him if maybe I could bring him back from the Dark Side."

"No!" Mara, Leia, and Han yelled simultaneously. Chewbacca roared in agreement.

Luke took on his usual stubborn expression, "There is still good in him. I felt it on Bespin. He cares about me. I think maybe I can bring him back ..."

"No!" Leia said again, fiercely. "No, Luke. He nearly killed you."

"But he didn't. He didn't."

"He cut off your hand!" his twin exclaimed.

Luke looked down at his prosthetic and nodded sadly, "I know."

Mara let a few seconds go by to see if the Skywalker twins would keep yelling at each other. When it seemed they were done for the moment, she stood up and walked over to Luke.

"Skywalker?"

Luke looked at her, his eyes determined. Really, he was ridiculously noble and kind and yes, cute.

She sighed, "Luke. Listen, I think at some level you are right. I think Vader cares about you. But one of the things about Dark Side Force bonds is that they are very powerful. Vader pledged himself to Palpatine long ago. My own bond was such that without the help of Master Yoda, I wouldn't have been able to sever it. And I was just a lowly, pathetic, Hand, one of many. Vader is a Sith Lord, Palpatine's apprentice. He ... he's going to find it very hard to break free from his master's commands."

Luke frowned, "He said I could kill the Emperor, that we could rule the galaxy as father and son."

Jade nodded slowly, "Yes, perhaps at some level he really wants that. But realistically, he was going to take you to the Emperor in carbon freeze, or at least that's what he told Calrissian. You and your sister are the greatest hope to take down Palpatine, and I think if you surrender to Vader, you might die in the process."

"Isn't it part of our lives to sacrifice for others?" Luke responded quietly.

"For noble friends? Yes. For innocents? Yes. For a demented Sith Lord father who tortured your friends and cut off your hand? Well, I question that."

"I agree, Kid," Solo spoke up. "I know you have always wanted to know your dad but reality is, he's got major issues."

Luke chuckled in spite of himself. Even after all the suffering at Vader's hands, Han Solo maintained his own brand of wry insouciance.

"I think I have to try, though," Skywalker suggested hesitantly.

"No, you don't," Mara riposted, "because you have me."

Luke frowned, "Meaning?"

"Meaning you and your sister are too close to this situation. Meaning that Yoda and the wispy Ghost aren't reliable either because your father was partially responsible for the collapse of the Jedi Order and they can't think straight about him. Meaning that I've been trained to complete difficult missions. Let me focus on Vader and on the best way to proceed. I like you all but I'm not as close to this as you are. I think I can be more ... more objective."

Skywalker looked worried, "No, Mara, I don't want you putting yourself at risk. He's insanely dangerous."

Jade chuckled grimly, "Believe me, I won't get near him. But let me take the lead on this one."

_Author Note: I'm with Skywalker about holodramas. If there is one thing that makes me writhe and moan, it is being stuck in a doctor's waiting room with some painfully dull and annoying soap opera blaring in the corner. Thanks to those of you taking time to review and read. Thanks to the wonderful husband person who keeps on editing, keeps on editing, what does he do, he edits!_


	5. Chapter 5

_Executor_

_In orbit around Kothlis_

_2 months later_

Darth Vader stormed into his private quarters and slammed the door shut with the Force. Once again, _once again_, his elusive, slippery son had eluded him.

The Dark Lord actually groaned loudly enough that the vocoder picked it up, even as he began pacing the floor and contemplating the last frustrating week. He had been on Imperial Center when word had arrived that a group of vagabond bounty hunters had successfully captured his son on Kothlis. He had raced to this oceanic Mid Rim world and arrived just too late. Luke had broken free from his captors and made his escape off planet in the _Millennium Falcon_.

As if all that wasn't irritating enough, his son and cohorts had hidden in a nearby asteroid field for some hours before finally making their way into hyperspace. Given his admittedly limited knowledge of his son, it was unlikely Luke was deliberately antagonizing him by hovering just out of reach. It was more likely that the _Falcon_ had experienced one of her usual malfunctions, but regrettably the_ Executor_ had not been able to differentiate between a million floating rocks and the battered freighter and thus Vader had missed his chance again to lay hands on his son. He had watched in impotent fury as the Falcon eventually scooted out of the asteroid field and went into lightspeed.

It was enraging and frustrating and ... and no, of course it wasn't sad. Not sad. He was just angry and furious and outraged and wanted to kill people and break things. That's all. He wasn't grieved because his son rejected him. Sith Lords did not experience such puerile emotions.

There was a brief chime from Vader's com and the Dark Lord cringed slightly. Piett was far too wise to bother him unnecessarily; thus, the com must be from someone important. Possibly the Emperor, and he did _not _want to talk to the old man about his latest failure.

With a subdued growl, the Sith marched over to the com and looked at the incoming code. It was not the Emperor, though it was from one of his trained emissaries, one of the Emperor's Hands. He didn't dare ignore this, though he would prefer to stew privately.

With an irritable wave of a couple of fingers, he turned on the holotransmitter, causing a large holoscreen at one end of his quarters to light up. Vader turned to face it and his scarred, hairless eyebrows raised in surprise. The woman was familiar, of course, but her posture was peculiar. The Emperor's Hands were their own entity within the Empire and Vader rarely interfered with them at his Master's command. But they always treated him respectfully.

Very oddly, Mara Jade was slumped casually on a chair and she had a glass of what appeared to be blue milk in her hand. Her demeanor was ridiculously relaxed for a discussion with the junior Sith Lord of the Empire.

"Emperor's Hand," Vader growled.

The woman raised one eyebrow, "Former Emperor's Hand, Lord Vader. Didn't Palpatine tell you that I chose to leave his service?"

Vader blinked his damaged eyes incredulously. No one ...

"No one leaves the service of the Emperor without his express permission, Hand, and that typically involves his or her death," he intoned coldly.

Jade actually chuckled, "Well, he might think I'm dead. Probably does. And you are, of course, correct that if he ever catches up with me it'll be ugly, so I'll be sure to keep myself from such a fate."

Frowning, Vader reached out through the Force. Jade was not well trained, but she was a relatively powerful Force Sensitive. Possibly, he could find her ...

His touch met hers before she threw up surprisingly sophisticated shields.

"Now, now, now," the red haired woman said with a mirthless smile, "none of that. I am fairly close geographically to you but I assure you that if R2 here senses any kind of interference with either my ship or my person, we'll be out of here and into hyperspace. And I think you'll want to hear what I have to say."

Vader surreptitiously typed a few commands into his console in search of Jade's location.

"What do you wish to say to me?" he asked drily.

The woman – almost a girl, really – lifted her chin and glared at him, "Well, the first thing I want to say is that as a father, you stink like the back end of a rancor."

The Sith took a gasping breath out of sync with his respirator, a sudden inhalation of shock and outrage at the insult.

Shock lingered longer.

"You ... you ..." he stuttered out.

"Know that Skywalker is your son? Maybe." Mara inquired with a sly smirk. "In fact, I followed Skywalker to Bespin, rescued Solo, killed the bounty hunter, and helped them all escape. I am now officially part of Skywalker's inner circle."

Vader stared at her for a long moment, his mind whirling.

Fact #1: Emperor's Hands did not leave the service of Palpatine. Mara Jade, indeed, was even more slavishly devoted to the old despot than most.

Fact #2: His son, while somewhat naive, would not trust an Imperial agent.

Fact #3: The Emperor was notoriously sneaky and indeed, Jade had been assigned to spy on him in the past.

Therefore: Jade was lying.

Conclusion: Palpatine did not trust Vader where Skywalker was concerned, so this was one giant, not very sophisticated trap to entice him into saying something traitorous.

"No one leaves the service of our mutual master, Jade," he repeated coldly.

The redhead actually rolled her eyes in exasperation, "You have a very suspicious mind, Vader, though I guess that's no surprise. Fine, R2D2? I know after Skywalker's recent work on your sublevel memory files that you have a few things to say to Vader. Go ahead."

The holocam shifted slightly to show the slightly grungy form of a small blue and white R2 unit, one indeed like his astromech from during the Clone Wars. Well, that was at least sophisticated of Palpatine. Not that he'd believe, for a minute, that this was indeed ...

The R2 unit began snarling at him in binary and within 30 seconds Darth Vader, formerly Anakin Skywalker, was 100% sure that this was indeed his old droid. R2D2 spent a full minute describing a few joint secret missions from the Clone Wars, went on at some length about Vader's outrageous cruelty against his own son and Leia Organa (why would she matter?), lingered lovingly on ways that the droid would like to kill his former master slowly and thoroughly, and finished by pointing out that Jade had way more sense than the former Anakin Skywalker and had indeed left Palpatine's service and was now a close friend to Luke Skywalker himself.

Vader was struck dumb for a full minute and only shook loose from his amazement when there was a soft beep from the locator. He glanced at it and clenched his damaged teeth; Jade was in a ship in that blasted asteroid belt, and he knew from experience that the _Executor_ wouldn't be able to find her any time soon.

Best to pull what information he could from her, then.

He glanced back up to see that the cam had shifted back to the woman.

"Convinced?" she demanded in a snide tone.

"Certainly," Vader stated firmly, trying to sound confident. "Do you have a message from my son?"

"Um, kind of?" Mara replied, taking another sip of blue milk. "The message is that I am now the middle woman between you and Skywalker. Anything you want to say comes through me. And while Skywalker does indeed have quite a bit of interest in you as his long lost dad, he also knows he's not entirely rational about you. So I decide if you get to see him, not you, not him."

Darth Vader, Lord of the Sith, gaped in total and complete astonishment and outrage.

"You dare to keep me from my son?" he sputtered icily. "Luke belongs with me, at my side. He is my heir, my family! We belong together."

"Well, maybe, just _maybe,_ Skywalker belongs with his twin sister, Vader. I mean, they shared a womb after all, and she hasn't chopped off any of his limbs even once."

Another long, gaping pause, followed by, "Twin sister? Pad ..., my wi ... she wasn't carrying twins!"

"Ah, but she was. We even found an old holo recently in R2D2's previously submerged memory banks showing their birth. Yep, twins. Everyone seemed surprised about the whole thing at the time, and Skywalker was certainly startled to find out a few months ago, as was his sister."

Darth Vader felt his eyes crossing slightly and forced himself to focus. He was trembling slightly too. A daughter. He felt the Force reveling, and rejoicing, in the reality that his precious wife had borne a daughter to him along with a son.

"Who is she?" he demanded. "Is she a Rebel?"

"Oh yeah, of course," Jade replied cheerfully. "Of course. In some ways, _the _Rebel. Like, the most famous Rebel of them all who is dark haired and dark eyed and gorgeous and is Skywalker's age. You know, his dear friend, his precious ..."

"Leia Organa," he intoned in growing horror. No please, it could not be.

"Yep!" Jade replied with a cheeky grin. "Yep. I figured it out actually. She heard him calling for help after you threw him down an endless chasm ..."

"HE JUMPED!" Vader interrupted in fury. "He. Jumped! It was his choice to leap to his death, not mine. I offered him my hand and a place by my side."

"Oh right, he jumped," Jade replied with narrowed eyes, "after you tortured his friends, including his at that time unknown sister, and beat him into a pulp and cut off his hand. Yep, he decided he didn't want to be any part of your screwed up life. Amazing."

Vader's growing rage was suddenly quenched by a horrifying memory of Leia Organa on the Death Star, screaming in agony as he tortured her in search of the location of the Rebel Base. His Angel's angel ...

"Leia Organa," he repeated numbly.

"Yes!" Jade said enthusiastically. "Skywalker ended up on a weather vane at the bottom of Cloud City and Organa heard him calling for help through the Force. I thought that was quite extraordinary so I did a surreptitious genetic test to check for some kind of match that would explain a nascent Force bond. I was thinking maybe 2nd cousins or something and confess I was quite surprised by the results. Fraternal twins. Amazing."

Darth Vader, Lord of the Sith, stared blankly at the woman in front of him and nodded slightly. He would do anything to get his hands on his children. His _children_. Perhaps Jade could be worked on ...

"What do you want from me to arrange a meeting with my children?" he asked.

"Well, Organa's out at the moment. Not surprisingly, you are her least favorite person in the galaxy and she has no desire to go Round 3 in a torture chamber."

"I would not do such a thing," Vader protested.

"And after maiming and nearly killing her brother, I'm sure she'll believe you. Skywalker, though, Skywalker is willing to meet with you but you have to do something first."

"What is it?" he replied, trying to sound trustworthy and reasonable and sincere. He wasn't sure how well that was going over since he rarely bothered with such intonations.

"You have to kill Palpatine," Jade replied matter-of-factly.

Darth Vader blinked at her in astonishment, then blinked again.

"What?"

"Kill. Emperor. Palpatine. Kill him. Then you and Skywalker can talk."

The Dark Lord found himself shaking his head in disbelief.

"That is absurd, Jade. Absurd. No one can kill the Emperor. He is the most powerful being in the universe, and my master."

"Yep, your master. Look, I get it, sort of. I had a bond with him as well and I'm sure it was a weak and wispy thing compared to yours with the old vornskr. Breaking free from Palpatine and his influence is not going to be fun or easy. But reality is you can't have your Jogan fruit cake and eat it too. You either dispose of Palpatine and take steps towards your kids, or you stick to the tyrant you know. You can't have both your son and daughter and your tyrannical master. It just won't work that way."

Vader hesitated. This conversation was no doubt being recorded by Jade and if he said anything too rebellious, it might possibly get back to Palpatine somehow.

"Even if I wished to do what you suggest," he replied carefully, "it is entirely impossible, as I have already said."

"No," Mara replied, pointing directly through the holocam at the cyborg. "No, it isn't. You're smart, the most powerful Force sensitive in the galaxy, perhaps aside from your kids, and you can figure it out. Bespin shows you can be subtle when you want to be, in a horrifyingly brutal way. Think about it, plot it, do it. Kill Palpatine. When you do, I'll contact you and not before."

"I will find my son and my daughter with or without your help, Jade," Vader rumbled. "Nothing can stop that."

"It's a big galaxy, Vader," the woman replied. "Good luck with that. Jade out."

/

_The Kothlis mission where Luke is captured and then escapes just in time to evade Vader is canon from the book _Shadows of the Empire_. Thanks again to those of you reading and reviewing! _


	6. Chapter 6

_Darth Vader's hyperbaric chamber_

_Executor_

_In hyperspace_

_En route to Imperial Center_

_6 hours later_

For the sixth time in the last hour, Vader checked his mental shields. They were still shut down tightly and he was certain that his master, in spite of their powerful bond, would not be able to read either his thoughts or his emotions.

Leia Organa of Alderaan was his daughter.

His daughter.

_ His daughter._

In retrospect, he had been blind. The girl was so much like his Padme, dark haired, dark eyes, beautiful, slight of form but mighty in spirit. A gifted politician. But it had never so much as crossed his mind that she was, she was ...

At least Solo had been rescued. If the Corellian smuggler had gone to a nasty death at the Hutt's hands, Organa likely would have never forgiven him.

Probably she would never forgive him anyway. He had stood, tall and proud and indifferent, and held her with harsh hands as the Death Star destroyed her world.

Wait a moment.

Why would he want Organa _(Leia_) to forgive him? He had merely been acting as a Sith Lord when he had ... had tortured her. Twice. But the Dark Side was power. It was best for both his children that they learn quickly that kindness and love and attachment were a one way hyperspace lane to heartache and devastation. They needed to be cold and tough and cruel. There was no other way.

Was there?

It was extraordinary that R2D2 was with his children.

R2.

He felt something clench in his thoroughly mangled stomach and closed his eyes against the soft lights of the hyperbaric chamber.

That little R2 unit had saved his life many times back in the days when he fought in battle after battle, had completed mission after mission after mission. To think that now his old astromech hated his guts, wanted to kill him for his ... actions against his own children.

Well, that was no surprise. Droids couldn't sense the Dark Side, after all. R2 did not understand, that was all.

That was all.

Maybe ...

Could he kill Palpatine?

Surely not. His master was so powerful. He needed Luke's power (or maybe Leia's – was she also vibrant in the Force?) to conquer the old Loth-bat.

But had he even thought about it? At all? Had Darth Vader, junior Sith Lord for 20+ years, even thought about killing his master alone? Had he even considered it?

No.

No.

Because ... because Palpatine, for all his cruelty, for all his machinations, had been, for decades, the only sure thing in Vader's unsettled galaxy. He had lost Padme to heartbreaking, horrifying death, and only Sidious remained. No one else understood him. No one else knew his past like Sidious did. No one shared the glorious, invigorating, addictive power of the Dark Side.

He would feel bereft without Sidious, he realized. Viciously delighted in some ways, as his master was often cruel and demeaning to his cyborg apprentice, but Vader's slavery to the old man was at least comfortable in its own way.

But his children lived.

He had two glorious, powerful, children who had persevered in their commitment to the principles of their mother through agony and struggle at the hands of their own father.

If he killed Palpatine, if he did, there was a chance that he would be able to forge some kind of relationship with his twins.

But if Palpatine continued to live and rule, Vader would lose at least one of the children, and probably both. He couldn't imagine the power of their twin bond. Where one went, the other would go in the Force. And even if both turned to the Dark Side (which seemed most unlikely) Palpatine would never permit two Force sensitive young Skywalkers to live. He would pit one against the other, and one would die.

After both of them killed him, most likely. The Rule of Two was, in Vader's opinion, misguided and outdated and indeed Palpatine had side stepped it by creating the Hands and the Inquisitorious program. But Palpatine wouldn't be happy with Vader and two children roaming around growing in power.

He should kill Palpatine.

But how could he do such a thing? And if he figured out a way, could he do it? At the critical moment, would he let his anger lash out at his cruel master or would he stay his hand, caught up in the web of dependence on Palpatine.

Darth Vader was not prone to much self reflection but it occurred to him, dimly and sadly, that he was not unlike a battered wife who returns again and again to her cruel husband.

He had been that cruel husband, though only once and even then he hadn't actually killed his beautiful Angel because she had lived long enough to give birth to Luke and Leia.

Palpatine had lied on that horrific day long ago. He had told his shattered slave that with his own hand, the former Anakin Skywalker had murdered both wife and progeny ...

He did want to kill Sidious. He did. But how ...

Wait.

Hmmm.

That was an idea. But the problem remained that he might hesitate at the crucial moment.

What if someone_ else _made the critical decision?

Someone like, someone like ...

_/-_

_The _Millennium Falcon

_Docked on the Rebel Capital Ship _Liberty

_In orbit around Sullust_

_2 weeks later_

"The place is jam packed with bounty hunters and smugglers and general scum. I don't feel great about either of you going in with us. Jabba will think he's died and gone to blobby heaven at the sight of either of you."

"I've been trained as a professional dancer," Mara said, her brow furrowed as she studied the schematics. "It's actually a great way to get me in there."

"The clothing won't be, uh, very, uh ..."

"Modest?" Jade asked, lifting her gaze. "I'm going to help kill the Hutt so I can handle a little embarrassment over my outfit. It wouldn't be the first time."

She was aware that she sounded bitter and wasn't surprised when Skywalker reached over to take her hand. She buried a sigh. Luke was such a nice man and she appreciated his support, but there were times when she wanted to shake him off. Yes, Palpatine was an evil jerk. Yes, he had made her do nasty things. It was life.

"You might need some Mind Healing at some point," Obi-Wan Kenobi stated, appearing abruptly on the other side of the dejarik board.

"Not now, Kenobi," Mara stated, waving a dismissive hand, "we're busy."

"Seriously, the Ghostly One is here?" Solo demanded irately.

"Yes he is," Leia admitted, then rose to her feet. "Obi-Wan, come on into the pantry with me. I have a few questions about your last confrontation with our father on Mustafar."

Kenobi's pale face grew paler and he seemed to grow even more transparent, but he apparently decided disappearing entirely wasn't a good idea.

"Very well," he muttered forlornly, and drifted toward the pantry.

"Of course, we can hope that Jabba just takes the money and lifts the bounty off of Han," Luke said brightly, his blue eyes shining with dewy enthusiasm.

There was a pause and then he and Han began laughing uproariously while Mara looked from one to another.

She shook her head, "I thought you were the inveterate optimist, Skywalker."

Luke sobered quickly, "I grew up on Tatooine, Mara. Jabba's a slimeball - mean, cruel, vicious, and known for holding a grudge more or less forever. You have to be some kind of idiot to work for that slug."

"Fine, fine," Han grumbled. "I really needed the credits, Kid. Sometimes I didn't have a lot of choice and had to take any work I could get."

Luke sighed, "I get it, Han. Listen, it's late and we should all get some rest. We'll plan on heading out to murder that krayt weasel in a week, if that sounds good. That'll give time for Leia to finish her agonizingly dull command meetings."

Mara leaned back and rubbed her neck, suddenly aware of how fatigued she was. Yes, sleep was a very good idea. She rose to her feet and made a quick trip to the refresher, then slid into the cabin that Solo had assigned to her.

She could, of course, have a random crew room on the _Liberty_ but she much preferred the _Falcon_. The bunk beds were lumpy and smelled vaguely of fish, but it was a safe place, a comforting place. She had hesitated to take a cabin on this rather small craft but Solo, in a surprising burst of tearful enthusiasm, said that he'd give the entire_ Falcon_ to her if she wanted it because she had saved him from carbon freeze and Jabba.

Mara knew he didn't really mean it – he adored his ship – but she felt fine about staying on board.

There was a hesitant knock at the door and Mara automatically reached out through the Force. Leia. Jade gestured and the door slid open. Organa came in, looking vaguely nervous.

"Mara, would you mind if I took the upper bunk? I don't have a cabin assigned on the _Liberty_ yet and I am totally exhausted. My cabin here on the _Falcon_ has some weird problem with the heating system and I'm steaming in there. Luke and I could bunk together but he needs get up in 4 hours for a Rogue Squadron exercise and I know I'll wake up. But if it's an imposition ..."

"No, no, not at all!" Mara replied, struggling to hide her surprise. "You don't mind the lower? I prefer to be up high."

"No problem," Leia said, her head tilted slightly. "I hope you really are fine with me being here, though. Are you sure?"

"Absolutely sure. I just thought, um, that you might, er, bunk with Solo."

Comprehension flashed across Leia's face and she blushed slightly, "Oh, no. We are quite old fashioned in that regard. We'll wait to, uh, share a cabin until we are married."

Mara was not used to having any interest in an individual's personal affairs beyond the needs of a mission, but she was suddenly filled with rampant curiosity.

"And you are planning to marry?" she asked in what she hoped was a delicate tone. On one hand, Solo and Organa seemed to be totally in love. On the other hand, Leia Organa was the last princess of destroyed Alderaan and the daughter of Darth Vader. Jade admired Solo but when all was said and done, he was just a scruffy smuggler.

"Absolutely!" Leia said, walking over to the mirror on the wall and taking down her elaborate bun. The resultant mass of braids was quite impressive. This girl had hair!

"He's already asked me to marry him and I accepted," the woman confided, turning to face Mara with a besotted smile on her face. "We're going to sneak off to some random cargo hold with a priest and get married as soon as this mission with Jabba is finished."

"Why wait?"

"Why? Because Han is weird. It's something Corellian, something about it being unlucky to be a widow after a week and he 10% expects to get killed. Of course that's ridiculous because we're going to slaughter Jabba, but I'm humoring him. I can wait a week."

Mara felt a stab of unaccustomed jealousy. She'd love to have someone in her life ...

"My brother is a possible option, you know. He really likes you," Leia commented with a sly smile.

The redhead felt her face flame. She seriously hadn't shielded that last thought?

"Go to bed, Organa," she growled.

/

_A few minutes later_

Mara realized, with relief, that this was going to be one of her good dreams. Her abduction, and the murder of her family, had taken place in spring on this temperate planet. Based on the leaves on the trees, this dream was taking place in fall.

She looked out over the small cliff into the hollow below. The little home, built with weathered wroshyr tree planks, was small but was, she knew from previous dreams, comfortable and homelike.

She saw herself as a 2 year old run outside with her mother in pursuit. Her mother, who also had red hair, chased her around the yard for a few minutes and then began tossing a ball. Toddler Mara chased the ball here and there, squealing in delight.

In her dream, Mara Jade felt tears filling her eyes. She had been loved by her birth family. She had been loved. Their deaths at the hands of Imperial troopers were horrifying and agonizing but yes, she had been wanted and very very loved.

Her neck prickled suddenly and her ears twitched at a foreign and alarming noise from behind her. She spun around to find Darth Vader a few meters away, his mask tilted down from its great height.

"This isn't fair!" Mara yelped aloud. "This is supposed to be a good dream. Why are you here?"

"I need R2D2," the behemoth stated flatly.

"What?'

"I need the astromech, R2D2," Vader continued, "so that I can kill the Emperor."

Mara took a horrified step backwards, "Wait, why is my brain coming up with you saying that?"

"I'm really here, Jade," Vader explained, taking a step back himself as if afraid she'd react violently and fall off a cliff. "I've spent the last two weeks tracing the bond we briefly formed when we talked in orbit outside Kothlis. I mean you no harm. I need R2."

Mara shook her head in confusion, "You have like a billion droids at your service. Why would you need Skywalker's astromech?"

The Sith Lord locked his hands behind his back, "Imperial droids have regular memory wipes. I assume, based on R2D2's rather vitriolic accusations, that he has not been wiped in decades."

Jade frowned and moved away from the cliff and farther away from Vader, "That's right. Apparently someone blocked his memory files from, er, Mustafar and your, um, marriage to the Senator. Once Skywalker knew what to look for, he poked around and unblocked R2's memories. If anything, that droid has gotten even more eccentric since then."

"Eccentric," Vader boomed in response. "Precisely. I need him because he's eccentric. He was always a defiant, clever, creative droid and I would assume that twenty additional years have merely cemented his rather bizarre personality. I need that. Furthermore, Palpatine cannot read the mind of a droid."

"Oh," Mara replied softly, then lifted a doubtful eyebrow, "you think R2 can kill the Emperor? Really?"

"No. R2 can give the order that results in the death of the Emperor. I do not trust myself to ... to make the vital directive at the necessary moment."

Jade glared at him suspiciously, "You won't use R2 to uncover information about the twins?"

Vader twitched openly at these words, but shook his head, "I will not ... demand anything. If R2D2 chooses to share anything, I welcome that, of course. How ... how are they doing?"

"Oh, you know, pretty well," Mara replied with a smirk. "Your daughter's on the verge of marrying that shabby Corellian that you tried to kill. I think they will be very happy together."

The Dark Lord flinched, his great hands clenching, "Much as I hesitate to criticize my daughter, I cannot approve. He is not worthy of her."

"That's Ok," Jade replied in a sunny tone. "Leia would be upset if you weren't outraged at the very notion. So, R2. I need to talk to Skywalker and Organa but if they agree, how would you pick up the little fellow?"

"I have a small base on the third moon of Darada," Vader intoned. "Send him there."

Mara frowned, "That's assuming Skywalker goes for it. He's fond of the little droid."

"I pledge that I will not harm R2D2, and will return him to ... to my son as soon as possible."

"All right."

Mara glanced around one last time, preparing to say good-bye to her homeworld, a place she only remembered in her dreams and visions.

"Do you know where we are?" she asked Vader suddenly.

The Sith stilled, his focus intent on her, and then looked around.

"Ulmatra, I believe," he replied, lifting up one long black armored arm to point at a large bird circling lazily in the distance. "The Ulmatran concord convor? is native to that planet."

Mara bit her lip, though it didn't hurt since she was dreaming.

"Thank you."

/-

_Vader's Hyperbaric Chamber_

_Executor_

_In orbit around _Tepasi

Darth Vader opened his eyes and groaned as his right frontal lobe screamed at him in violent indignation. This was truly the headache of the decade and he had a great deal of experience with head pain. His helmet was ridiculously heavy. Padme used to complain about her_ hair_ being heavy. She'd be horrified at his helmet and armor and damaged organs and ...

She would be horrified about many things in his life.

He forcibly turned his memories away from his gorgeous, glorious dead wife and focused on the success of his mission. It had taken a long time to track down Mara Jade but he had finally succeeded. In a way, it was something of a miracle as their Force contact in orbit around Kothlis had been very brief; the woman was, if nothing else, remarkably adept at communicating across long distances.

The Sith took a few deep breaths, calming his body. The pain in his head dropped to a manageable level and he picked up a holopad. A brief message from Admiral Piett topped his list of communiques.

Four more clone troopers had been found and were being surreptitiously transferred to _Executor._

Excellent.

/-

Millennium Falcon

_Docked on the Liberty_

_The next morning_

"So you really think that was Vader?" Solo demanded skeptically.

"It was definitely Vader," Mara replied with a shudder. While in the midst of her dream, Vader's appearance had been alarming but not creepy. In the cold light of day, it was very creepy. How had he found her?

"I think we need to work on your shielding, Mara," Luke said seriously. "You don't need dreams with my father strolling in and out."

"Yes," she agreed fervently.

"So about R2?" Leia asked, wandering into the room with a bowl of scrambled convor eggs covered with blue milk cheese.

"I think so long as R2D2 is Ok with it, we should send him," Luke replied immediately.

R2, who had been sitting quietly nearby plugged into a nearby power socket, began beeping and whistling. The various humans looked first at him, then at C-3PO.

"Well, really, R2, that is quite rude, even about Lord Vader," the golden plated droid said indignantly.

More booping.

"I am a protocol droid, familiar in more than 6 million forms of communication," C-3PO stated. "Nowhere in my programming is there a subroutine which involves 'giving a piece of my mind' to a Sith Lord. It just isn't done."

"So I assume R2 is ready and willing?" Leia asked drily, taking a bite of her eggs.

"Eager, indeed, Mistress Leia, though I fear that he has no intention of being polite."

There was a long pause as the humans contemplated.

"Let's do it," Luke said calmly.

_Author Note: Just a couple more chapters I think. Thanks to my husband for continuing to edit for me!_


	7. Chapter 7

_Vader's private chambers_

_Executor_

_In orbit around Yulant_

_8 days later_

Darth Vader, Supreme Commander of the Imperial Navy, Sith Lord, Mighty Practionioner of the Dark Side of the Force, gazed nervously at the silent blue and white astromech droid sitting quietly on the floor of his private chamber.

R2D2 had been, of course, scanned thoroughly for bombs, parasitic mynocks, biological weapons, and stray mice. Apparently, his children had chosen not to use the little droid to transport anything too unpleasant.

According to a flimsy letter taped to R2's lone eye, Luke had shut the droid down for transport. The note was brief and not particularly enlightening, but his son had spoken vaguely of the droid's "proclivity for mischief" when not under someone's direct oversight.

Vader could only appreciate his son's wisdom and caution. Where R2 was concerned, it was sensible to be concerned about potential havoc.

Well, there was no point in continuing to procrastinate. The Dark Lord lifted R2 into the air with the Force and connected his main power core to his central processing unit. He then lowered the astromech to the floor and waited. A few lights blinked on, then a few more, then R2 burbled a few times, then the rest of his lights came on, then his eye twitched and twirled and swirled until the cyborg came into view.

R2 froze for a few seconds, rolled forward, and began beeping and booping passionately. The insults were wide and varied and truly impressive given the limitations of binary. Vader remembered, with what was most definitely_ not_ any sort of nostalgia, that his former self had worked with Ahsoka in teaching R2 some of his most gratuitous insults in the Jedi Temple itself when Ahsoka had been badly injured in a mission gone sour. His young apprentice had been thoroughly discouraged at being bedridden but had cheered considerably when he and R2 had practiced insults with the Togruta padawan. Nothing bawdy, given Ahsoka's tender years, but extremely insulting.

No, of course he wasn't nostalgic.

After ten minutes of non stop indignation, the droid apparently decided to take a break. He fell into silence and waited on Vader to speak.

The Sith regarded the small droid thoughtfully. R2 had literally been through the wars and looked somewhat more battered than when he had last laid (at that time healthy) eyes on the little droid, but Luke or Leia or both had obviously taken good care of him.

"Are you done?" he inquired sarcastically.

R2 indicated that no, he was not done, but he was willing to listen to Vader's plan to take down the loathsome Emperor.

Darth Vader smiled behind his mask.

"Very well. Listen."

/—

_Jabba the Hutt's Rancor Pit_

_Jabba the Hutt's Palace_

_Tatooine_

_Afternoon_

Mara Jade raised her brilliant yellow lightsaber even as she backed towards a small alcove in the corner of the truly vile, malodorous rancor pit. The beast was obviously not wildly intelligent, as it attempted to bat at her lightsaber. It howled in pain and indignation when it lost one filthy finger to the glowing laser blade.

"_You Ok?"_ Skywalker asked through the Force.

_"I'm fine,"_ she snapped back irritably. "_Pay attention to what is going on up there!"_

With a horrified sniff at the truly disgusting miasma surrounding her, she backed further into the alcove and crouched down into as small a space as possible. When she'd fallen/jumped into the pit, three Gamorrean guards had fallen in with her. The rancor had, with surprising sense, now turned its attention on the pig like aliens and was stalking them around the cage. The guards were screaming and howling in terror.

So far, the mission was going (mostly) as planned. Calrissian had easily found employment as a guard, and then gotten her in as a dancer. They'd prowled around and found a back entrance, the aptly named "Dung Gate" where the rancor's giant droppings were sold to local farmers for fertilizer. The rest of the crew – Skywalker, Organa, Solo, even the giant Wookiee – had been smuggled into Jabba's palace by Mara, who had found a couple of well placed Force Suggestions entirely adequate to befuddle the idiotic gate keepers.

Leia had accompanied Mara to the poor excuse for a dressing room for the dancers and had found a scanty outfit with a semi sheer, metallic top. The material was sufficiently similar to the woman's lightsaber that she was able to carry her weapon into Jabba's Throne Room where ...

Luke Skywalker and Han Solo and Chewbacca had confronted the Hutt. Skywalker had offered to pay for Solo's long overdue debt. Jabba had laughed uproariously at the very idea and had ordered his guards to arrest the threesome. Whereupon ...

Luke and Leia and Mara had pulled out their lightsabers, and Han and Chewie and Lando had pulled out their blasters, and the carnage began. Jabba had of course tried to feed Luke to the rancor but forewarned is forearmed. He had easily evaded the sudden gaping hole in the middle of the Throne Room. Mara had, to her embarrassment, not been quite so lucky. She had fallen in while slicing up three random bounty hunters and an enthusiastic Kitonak male, a member of Max Rebo's band, who had tried to slam Jade over the head with his flute. But all was not lost because ...

If there was one thing that Yoda enjoyed, it was teaching his students how to safely fall long distances. Indeed, that prior training had come in handy when Luke had fallen into the carbon freezing pit on Bespin. If Skywalker had broken an ankle, he would not have been able to jump out. And if Skywalker had been captured, the galaxy would be heading in a very different direction.

"_Watch out below!"_ Skywalker yelled into her head. Jade flinched slightly at the telepathic noise and threw up a Force shield just as Jabba's large fleshy tail fell into the pit, followed ten seconds later by his immense blobby body, followed ten seconds later by his gigantic head, complete with startled red eyes and an extended tongue.

Indeed, as Organa predicted, the Rebel crew had slaughtered Jabba with relative ease. The Hutt, slaver and tyrant, was dead.

And Mara Jade stank to the second moon of Tatooine. At least the _Falcon _had a real water shower.

_/-_

Millennium Falcon

_Docked in the Liberty_

_In orbit around Sullust_

_A week later_

"Do you want to marry her?" Admiral Ackbar demanded.

Solo nodded enthusiastically, "Yes!"

"Do you want to marry him?"

"Yes!" Leia chortled in delight.

"You're married."

Han and Leia kissed enthusiastically.

"Thank you!" they chorused in unison.

/

_Vader's private chambers_

_Executor_

_In hyperspace_

_En route to the Death Star in orbit around Endor_

Darth Vader stepped into his private chambers and heaved a sigh of relief. It had been a long day of terrorizing his underlings and he was exhausted and ready for some sleep.

R2D2 swiveled and beeped a vague greeting, then turned back to the holoscreen which was set at an easy height for the small droid. The Sith walked over and tilted his head down (way down) in an attempt to read the symbols flying across the screen.

R2 immediately booped indignantly and scooted forward to block Vader's line of sight.

"I am merely curious, R2D2," Vader stated coldly.

The small astromech rocked back and forth on his pins as he snarled in binary.

"Very well, very well," Vader responded, twitching his fingers irritably. In his previous life as Anakin Skywalker he would have thrown his arms up in exasperation, but he had learned to conserve his motions in this heavy suit. "You are correct that it is best if I am unaware of the moment when you will act. I am going to sleep in my chamber."

Vader turned on his heel and entered the chamber, which shut a moment later.

R2D2 kept a dubious eye on the chamber for a long minute, then turned back to his maniacal plotting. There were clone troopers who needed further medical intervention, and fleet movements to consider, and the Death Star in the mix. But he would handle it. Palpatine's days and weeks were numbered.

/-

_Vader's chamber_

_A few minutes later_

"Hey, Vader," Mara Jade commented cheerfully.

Darth Vader spun around in shock, so startled that he almost woke up. He was in the midst of one his truly awful dreams about Mustafar and ordinarily would want to pull out of it, but this time ...

"Are you truly here?" he asked in amazement. It had not occurred to him that Jade would be able to follow the tangled skeins of the Force to find him.

"Me?" Jade replied. "Yep. I thought I'd drop by and just make sure that the droid made it to you Ok. Skywalker and Organa-Solo are worried."

The Sith stared at the redhead in shock even as the dreamscape changed. Mustafar, which was not his happy place, faded away before his eyes and ears, shifting to a random field of colorful stalisti flowers, which bobbed under a blue sky complete with puffy clouds. Nearby trees hosted a flock of singing barbary birds. It was offensively idyllic, but it was better than the lava field where he'd been burnt to a crisp.

"Organa-Solo?" he squawked.

Yes, he could squawk in a dream.

"They were married a few hours ago," Mara replied smugly, leaning over and picking a purple stalisti. She took a deep, happy whiff of the scent and smiled. "This is lovely. I love dreams where I can actually smell something good, especially since my hair still smells revolting from Jabba's rancor pit."

Vader's brain buzzed. Wedding? Rancor pit? Jabba?

"What?!"

Jade waved a casual hand, "We killed Jabba dead. It went well. None of our team was hurt. I got stinky. It'll pass. So, R2D2?"

Vader pulled himself together with difficulty. He had hoped his daughter would wait on pledging her life to a vagabond smuggler, but he should have known better. She would do what she wanted, when she wanted, with a particular delight in doing anything that would upset her cyborg father. That's what he got for attacking his wife and going crazy. His kids disliked him intensely, which was not, he admitted to himself, unreasonable.

"The droid is here and well," he replied carefully. "The plan proceeds, though it will take some time to implement."

"Take your time," Mara said with a grimace. "I mean, don't take forever, but I'm all for waiting if it increases your chances of success."

"Indeed."

/-

_Docking Bay #1_

_The Death Star_

_In orbit around Endor_

_3 months later_

Darth Vader sank to one knee and bowed his masked head. In front of him, the ramp to Emperor Palpatine's shuttle billowed some smoke for dramatic effect even as the aged monarch walked slowly down.

"Rise, my friend," Palpatine ordered as he reached the bottom.

Vader rose obediently to his feet and turned around as his master marched between the ranks of troops, all standing in careful rows. Sidious truly loved pomp and thus Vader had ordered many legions of troops to attend the arrival of the senior Sith.

"The Death Star will be completed on schedule," Vader intoned steadily.

"You have done well, Lord Vader. And now I sense you wish to continue your search for young Skywalker."

Vader firmed his mental shields. Yes, he wanted to find his son. And his daughter, who was thus far a secret from Sidious.

"Yes, my master."

He shot a nervous look at the aged Emperor, but Palpatine seemed calm enough. Of course, Vader never quite knew where he stood. Everything could be fine one second, and a second later agonizing lightning was flying around.

"Patience, my friend," Sidious began in his annoyingly creaky voice. "In time, he will seek you out, and when he does ..."

Vader listened wearily. They had had similar conversations before.

"_The time has come. Execute Order 42,"_ Vader's own voice suddenly echoed in his secondary auditory receiver.

The younger Sith froze in horrified shock. Not here, _not now_. So many troopers and only a twentieth of them were clones. What was R2D2 thinking?

To his right, and left, white clad stormtroopers began firing at the Emperor.

/

R2D2 chirped happily from his place of safety in Vader's private chambers. He had numerous auditory and visual feeds from Docking Bay #1. With a satisfied chortle, he pushed another button.

/

"_Emergency!"_ Darth Vader's voice spoke into the helmet receivers of the non-clone troopers. "_Emergency! This is not the Emperor! It is an imposter! Do not intervene as the 501st deals with the security breach!"_

Palpatine was taken entirely by surprise when a number of his troopers suddenly began shooting at him. His own Royal Guards were quick to respond to protect him even as Darth Vader himself lit his red blade.

The senior Sith felt a flash of warning in the Force and dodged to one side in time to avoid being cut in half by his apprentice. Unfortunately, Vader had moved quickly enough that Palpatine lost his left hand.

It hurt like_ crazy_.

"Traitor," he snarled in rage and fear. "Guards, kill Lord Vader!"

The red clad guards obeyed immediately, turning their Force pikes on the black armored cyborg. Vader leaped back a full meter and ducked to avoid a pike, just in time to see the guard fall as a trooper from the 501st shot him in the back.

Excellent.

The docking bay was a madhouse now. The non clone troopers were mostly standing back as ordered, though a few had shuffled forward in confusion. The clones themselves, under the command of Order 42, shifted in formation, taking cover behind other troopers and then darting forward to shoot at the elder Sith and his 5 red guards.

4 red guards.

3 ...

The Emperor was hobbling backwards towards the shuttle. It was obvious that he was in serious danger and his only hope was to retreat to the Super Star Destroyer _Eclipse_ in orbit around Endor. From there, he could deal with his traitorous apprentice ...

There was a sudden flash to the right, and the red saber of Darth Vader cut through the left landing strut, causing the entire shuttle to list catastrophically to the side. The Emperor held out his remaining hand and pulled with all his might. Vader's lightsaber slid forward slightly in his hand, but the younger Sith used both his mechanical and Force power to hang onto it. He could sense his master's rage in the Force and for a moment he felt his own determination weaken. This was his master, his mentor ...

The man responsible for 20 years of agony physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally.

No. This ended now.

He darted forward toward Sidious, his lightsaber at the ready. The last of the red troopers was down and the elder Sith was focusing his current attention on creating a shield to block the blaster shots from the clone troopers.

Almost there ...

Darth Vader struck with his saber, sending the blade into the Emperor's torso. He gave it a vicious twist and then withdrew it. Palpatine stood still for one stunned moment, then fell to the ground, his withered lips moving slightly.

"For Padme. For my children," Vader intoned, and swung down again to take the head off of the snake.

_/_

_Dagobah_

"Dead he is!" Yoda squealed in astonished delight, doing a random double back flip off of a nearby tree branch. "Dead, dead, dead, the Emperor is dead!"

_Author Note: The wedding scene dialogue is from Joe Versus the Volcano. I will explain more about Order 42 in the next chapter. Just another chapter or two and this one will be done. _


	8. Chapter 8

_Kenobi's Hut (sort of)_

_Tatooine (sort of)_

_A few hours later_

"Order 42?" Mara asked in bewilderment.

"Must we meet on this blasted planet?" Vader demanded irritably. "The galaxy is vast and spacious, teeming with mountains and forests and oceans. Why here, where all that one can see is endless sand?"

Jade leaned back in her (technically ephemeral) chair and lifted an amused eyebrow, "My apologies, Vader. I didn't know you disliked sand."

"It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere," the Sith retorted, shivering slightly. This was a dream, only a dream, and yet he could almost feel the silicon dioxide fragments creeping into the joints of his armor.

"Fine," Jade replied with a shake of her red mane, "take us somewhere else if you like. Kenobi's hut is pretty boring, I have to admit."

Vader looked around in surprise. This was where Kenobi had hidden out on Tatooine watching over his son? It was dismal and small.

"How do you know what Kenobi's home looks like?" Vader asked suspiciously.

"Luke took me there before we killed Jabba," Mara replied calmly. "Are we leaving here or not?"

The Sith stared at her for a long moment, then reached out to connect more firmly to her essence. A moment later, the scene shifted to a glorious beach on a glorious lake.

"Oh look, more sand!" Mara said with a grin. "Though the lake is beautiful. Where are we?"

"Varykino. The ancestral home of House Naberrie," the cyborg replied reverently.

Mara jerked slightly in surprise, lifted a cultured eyebrow, and nodded, "Ok. So, Order 42?"

The Sith gazed out at the lake. There was a small island in the middle. When Padme was young, she used to swim out there ...

"Order 42 was one of 150 orders embedded in the clone soldier's implanted chips. The most famous of those orders was Order 66, which forced the clones to kill the Jedi. Order 42 was, as of 6 months ago, an order to avoid eating fleek eel."

Mara choked, "What?!"

The great shoulders shrugged, "Jango Fett, the original template for the clones, had a genetic family predisposition towards a fleek eel allergy. The decision was made to include Order 42 so that if some of the clones began having a reaction to fleek eel, all the clones could be quickly ordered to avoid it."

"Ok," the woman replied, slightly wide eyed.

"It never proved an issue, probably as fleek eel was not widely available for the rank and file of the Republic, then Imperial, navies," Vader continued. "When I realized that the clones could be used to destroy Palpatine, I chose to alter Order 42 so that on command, the clones would attack the Emperor."

Mara gazed at him in shock and awe, "Truthfully, that was brilliant."

"Thank you," Vader replied rather awkwardly. "Much credit must go to R2D2. He used my command codes to move the clone troopers to the _Executor _in shifts to have Order 42 reprogrammed, then arranged for a multitude of clones to be present when the Emperor landed on the Death Star."

Mara blinked, "And then you ordered the clones to turn on him."

"No, R2 did. I did not wish to know when the clones would strike as Palpatine would likely have picked up my anxiety. Indeed, I did not expect R2 to choose that moment, as 90% or more of the troops in the hanger bay were not clones. R2 used my vocoder template to order the non-clones to stay clear of the fight; he asserted, again using my well known voice, that the Emperor was in fact an imposter and that they should stay clear as the 501st destroyed him. It worked remarkably well."

The woman laughed softly, "So you were brilliant, but R2 was more brilliant."

"Precisely."

There was a pause and then Vader said hesitantly, "You stated that I needed to kill Palpatine, and I have done so. When ... when can I see my son?"

Mara smiled slightly, "That was indeed the deal. Luke?"

Vader turned abruptly just as Luke Skywalker popped into view, oddly enough a meter into the lake. The youth looked down his underwater legs and feet in surprise, chuckled, then waded out and nodded at Jade with a smile. Then his gaze shifted to the Dark Lord, and he grew serious but calm.

Vader feasted his eyes on his son. Luke looked good. This was a dream, so presumably the boy looked as he felt as opposed to how he really looked? Or did Luke look like his father fondly hoped he would? Strong and healthy instead of battered and broken after their Bespin encounter?

He had cut off his son's _hand_.

"Hello, Father."

Vader pulled himself together. This was not a time for recriminations and self hatred. He had an opportunity now to begin the slow walk back towards a real relationship with his son.

"Luke."

The boy looked nervous, as well he might. Jade took a few steps along the beach and linked her arm in the young Jedi's.

"Where are we?" Luke asked softly, looking around.

"This is Varakino," Vader explained softly.

"The estate of the Naberries, your mother's family," Mara added.

Luke's eyes widened and he looked around, then tilted his chin toward the terrace.

"You and Mother were married right there," the youth said reverently. "This is such a beautiful place."

The cyborg started noticeably, "How did you know that?"

Luke shrugged sheepishly, "Leia and I had a joint vision, Father, of your, uh, introduction to our mother, Padme Amidala, and your romance and adventures."

The Sith winced slightly, "Did you see our last encounter?"

"Where you choked her? Yes."

The black mask lowered, "I am sorry, my son. I have always regretted my actions. I still cannot bear to think of those moments when I turned on her, and you."

"You loved her."

Vader turned to look toward the great house to the east.

"I still do love her," he muttered. "I always will. Sometimes I wonder how I continue to live without her."

Mara glanced at Luke, who looked sad and uncomfortable, and cleared her throat dramatically.

"So, thanks for killing the Emperor, Vader," she said boldly.

"It was my pleasure," Vader replied. He meant it. The man had been both mentor and master, but he had also been cruel, capricious, manipulative and insanely dangerous. His biggest personal crime was lying to him about Padme. Now that Sidious was dead, the former Anakin Skywalker knew how enslaved he had been all these years. He felt almost free in spite of the life support, the scars, the crushing armor.

"So, now what are you going to do?" the young Jedi asked curiously even as he looked down at this bare feet. He wiggled his toes experimentally in the wet sand adjacent to the lake. The beach was delightfully cool and moist on his bare feet.

"Wet sand is way better than dry sand," he commented. "It doesn't blow around the same and it is cool and … kind of soft."

Vader looked down with a frown, "Sand is still multitudinous particulates. I hate it."

Luke sighed, "Yeah. Anyone who has spent lots of time on Tatooine has to hate sand. It's like, required."

"Indeed."

"Enough about sand," Mara said with a slight smile. "What's your next step, Vader?"

The great shoulders lifted a centimeter, "That depends on the wishes of my children."

Luke blinked owlishly, "On me and Leia? Why?"

His father stared at him, perplexed, "I killed him for you, my son. You and your sister. You would never be safe in a galaxy where Sidious ruled. Now he is gone and the Empire is yours."

The youth paled noticeably, "I ... we don't want the Empire, Father. We don't want any part of it! I thought I made that clear on Bespin!"

Vader flinched even as he nodded, "I realize that, my son. But your sister is a remarkable politician. I hope she will allow herself to be crowned Empress and she can then make changes as she deems fit."

"Empress?" young Skywalker howled. "Empress? She'll completely lose her mind at the very idea! No way."

"I would totally love to see Han Solo as the consort to the Empress Organa," Mara commented wickedly.

Luke stopped and turned to the woman, his eyes suddenly alight with amusement, "You know, that would be so hilarious it's almost worth convincing Leia to do it. I mean, he's a great guy, but so ..."

"I know," Mara agreed. "He's kind of shabby looking."

Luke grinned, "Leia once called him a low down, stuck up, scruffy looking nerfherder."

Vader waited patiently. On one hand, the reality that Han Solo was his son-in-law was horrific. On the other hand, if his son's apparently warped sense of humor helped convince Leia to ascend the Imperial throne, he would stay quiet and hope for the best.

Mara and Luke continued to gaze at one another, and then the young Jedi nodded and looked back at his father.

"I'll talk to her about it," he stated. "I mean, aside from the humor of Han Solo helping run the galaxy, I have to admit Leia would do a great job."

Vader nodded hopefully, "I agree."

"Ok, so I'll talk to her and we'll, uh, get back to you?"

"I will await your sister's decision about the Throne, Luke. But there is one other thing."

"Yes?"

"I confess that I have very little experience as a father, but it seems important to me that I not favor one of you over the other. I'm offering your sister the Imperial Crown, so it only seems fair that you get a gift from me as well."

Luke's eyes widened hopefully, "A present? Um, well, that would be nice, I guess, though you don't have to. Do you have anything in mind?"

"I was wondering," Vader continued carefully, "whether you would like a Death Star."

/-

_Command Center_

_The Death Star 2_

_In orbit around Tatooine_

_3 months later_

"If this does horrible things to Tatooine, I will feel very guilty," Luke said nervously.

"Don't worry, Luke," Mara replied, putting a comforting arm around her fiancé. "The scientists on both sides of the war have been over and over this. It'll work."

Luke took a deep breath and nodded decidedly, "Ok, Father, let's do it."

Darth Vader reached out and cautiously melded with his son's Light Force sense. Together, they carefully manipulated the Force controlled lock which kept the Death Star's superlaser under the direct control of the galaxy's most powerful pair of living Force Sensitives.

"Proceed," Vader ordered once the superlaser was active.

"Commence primary ignition," a dark clad officer ordered.

A series of technicians began furiously pushing buttons and turning control wheels. A dramatic sequence of chimes culminated in a bright flash of vibrant green light outside the filtered main window of the command center.

Luke watched in awe as the Death Star's laser beam, which was set at 10% full strength, burned through the north polar ice cap of Chenini, the third moon of Tatooine.

A gigantic cloud of frozen ice geysered into space between Chenini and Tatooine, and Luke let out a sigh of relief. It had made him very nervous to fire the superlaser this close to Tatooine, but thankfully the desert planet hadn't blown up even a little bit.

"The operation is a success, sir," Commander Jerjerrod stated with a bow toward father and son.

Luke smiled, "Thank you, Commander. Father, when can Interdictor _Assassin_ slow the orbital rotation of the ice cloud so that the ice is pulled by gravity into Tatooine's atmosphere?"

"_Assassin _will arrive within 2 hours, my son," the Dark Lord rumbled. "Let us proceed to my chambers so you can announce to the success of the operation to the peoples of the galaxy."

Luke groaned and rolled his eyes.

"I wish Leia were here," he remarked pettishly. "She's better at this kind of thing."

"Leia's busy being Empress," Mara pointed out. "Plus you are a native of Tatooine, which puts a great spin on this operation. And you are pretty cute, if I do say so myself. You'll do fine."

Luke simultaneously blushed and winced, then planted a kiss on the woman who would soon be his wife.

"Commander, you have the command center," Vader ordered Jerjerrod even as he checked the current status of the superlaser. As planned, it had relocked itself after one blast, thus preventing anyone from using it until Luke and Vader both decided to operate it again.

"Yes, my Lord," Jerjerrod replied, carefully keeping his face neutral. It was an abomination that Luke Skywalker, the destroyer of the original Death Star at Yavin, was onboard this great battle station as its, what, its_ owner_? On the other hand, he didn't dare say anything to Vader who was, improbably, impossibly, the father to both Skywalker and the former Rebel princess Leia Organa, now Empress Organa.

Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker strode out of the bridge in step and Jerjerrod turned to give the appropriate orders to check on the superlaser. There were plans to sublimate the southern ice cap of Chenini tomorrow, once the current ice cloud reached Tatooine's atmosphere.

Jerjerrod issued the commands as needed, then turned and jumped slightly.

Mara Jade stood less than a meter from him, and the skin of her right cheek was twitching noticeably with heightened emotion.

"I know how you feel about Skywalker, Commander Jerjerrod," she declared. "If you plot against him, if you so much as cogitate murderous thoughts _about _him, I will know and I will kill you. I was a former assassin, you know, trained by Palpatine himself. I can kill you with a doughnut in four different unpleasant ways. Is that totally clear?"

"Yes, Lady Jade," the Commander replied with a distinct tremor in his voice.

/-

_Imperial Palace_

_Coruscant_

_2 days later_

_Late evening_

"Oh," Leia groaned, throwing herself back on her bed and stretching luxuriously, "this feels so good!"

"I bet ditching the crazy footwear would feel even better, sweetheart," Han replied, reaching down to pull off her 4 centimeter heeled shoes.

"Yes, that is much better," Leia replied, reaching out with the Force and jerking her husband onto the bed beside her.

He landed with a thump and then grabbed her. For a long minute, they engaged in non gratuitous kissing before she pulled away and flopped back on her pillow.

"Hard day, huh?" Solo asked.

"Yes," Leia replied. "I mean, it was good, but there are only so many meetings I can attend before my brain fries. Still, we're making tremendous progress ..."

She yawned, hard, then continued sleepily, "Tremendous progress with enacting the treaty between the Empire and the Rebellion. And having Luke and Vader hovering over Tatooine making rain is definitely helping with the Outer Rim problems ..."

"My brain fries within 10 minutes of any meeting," Solo murmured into her hair.

"I know," Leia replied even as she moved closer to curl up against his shabby vest. She chuckled softly.

"What's funny?" Solo asked idly.

"Ransome Quiltratz, the galaxy's most famous fashion designer, is going coco claw fish over your wardrobe, my love. Apparently he really wanted to start a line of pants with Corellian bloodstripes."

Her husband stiffened and turned to face her, "Hey, that's ..."

"Cultural appropriation ... although imitation is the sincerest form of compliment making cultural appropriation a foolish notion, but it is seriously offensive to those who've actually earned their stripes and not just purchased them," the Empress interrupted even as she sent a calming wave of the Force toward her husband. "Don't worry, someone set him straight. I'm guessing we'll soon see a great many shabby black vests in the upscale shopping stores."

"My vest isn't shabby."

"'Course it isn't," the woman muttered, her eyes shifting to the ceiling. She waved a couple of fingers toward the window above, which promptly opened to allow the starlight to filter into the room.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Leia asked softly. "Sometimes when I get overwhelmed I like to just stare at the stars. Because that's why we're doing all this."

"Yeah."

"Though this room is kind of ostentatious," she added with a mild scowl. "Krayt dragon furniture, gold flaked black paint, and this bed is crazy luxurious. Palpatine had ridiculously expensive tastes."

"I like this bed."

"I know, right?" Leia agreed with a grin. "But I worry that it's not really appropriate for me. I am working so hard to overcome the idea that government officials should live in luxury while the galaxy suffers."

"So what you're saying," Han commented thoughtfully, "is that you should spend a bunch of money to change this room into something simpler."

Leia's eyes widened as she pondered this, "You're right, that's silly. And it's not like the general public sees this bedroom."

"It is silly," Han agreed softly. He watched as Leia's eyes closed more, then fluttered shut entirely.

Han Solo lay quietly, his eyes on his precious wife. She was asleep now, and he was careful not to move lest he disturb her much needed rest.

It was hard to believe how much had changed in the last few years. He had once been a smuggler and common criminal. Now he was the beloved husband of the most amazing woman in the entire galaxy, who was happened to be the Empress of the known galaxy, brother-in-law to a crazy Jedi, and son-in-law to Darth Vader himself.

It was kind of insane.

But it was good.

_The End of the Main Story_

_But there will be an epilogue_

_Author Note: Many many thanks to those of you who have read this little story and a special note of thanks to those who review. Those little reviews help me keep on keeping on. Thank you, dear husband, for editing for me!_


	9. Epilogue

Author Note: Lots of fluff.

_Skywalker Town_

_Lesser Mesra Plateau_

_150 km south of Mos Eisley _

_Tatooine_

_Noon_

_10 years later_

Mara Jade Skywalker chuckled as she strolled out of the docking bay and into the main street of Skywalker Town. Various enormous banners floated above the street on microlifters and she read them with amusement.

_"Ten Years and Counting ..."_

_ "Rain? Imaginary or Not?"_

_ "Parties Are Fun Even Without Mist"_

_ "Humidity? What's That?"_

"Hello, my love," Luke said, stepping up behind his wife. Mara had sensed him coming and didn't jump, instead choosing to turn around and squish her rather large bulk against her husband's slim form.

They enjoyed a long, enthusiastic kiss in spite of the public arena, then separated to stroll down the street.

"Thank you for coming, my dear. I'm always startled when the whole family willingly gathers here since Tatooine is so full of_ sand_," Luke commented.

"I don't mind sand as much as you and your father, you know that. And I wouldn't miss this for the galaxy. I hesitated about spending the night in orbit, but I was tuckered out after arriving from Coruscant so decided to get some rest. I knew you were celebrating with old friends last night and I would have fallen over from fatigue."

"And did you sleep well?" Luke asked with concern.

"Well, not very, thanks to two small beings kicking my bladder all night. But every time I woke up, I enjoyed the view so that made it a bit easier."

"The Agricultural Haven is amazing, isn't it?"

"It's gorgeous," Mara mused, shaking her head slightly. "I strolled through the Kashyyyk section before I got on the shuttle to come down and they have real wroshyr trees growing. I mean, not big ones, but real trees! I saw quite a few insects buzzing around and they seemed quite comfortable and happy, or as much as non-sentient bugs can be happy. It's astounding what's been done in the last 9 years since the Death Star was converted into an agricultural center."

"We have four Force Sensitives working up there now," Luke said with a smile. "Father and I are training them and we'll be officially starting up a new Jedi AgriCorps soon."

"So what are the kids doing?" Mara asked suddenly, looking down the street toward a very large building where she sensed her three offspring were engaged in something active. She reminded herself that the youngest, Clarissa, was four years of age and less insane than she was even a year previously, so she probably wasn't getting into _too_ much trouble.

"Don't worry, Chewbacca is keeping a close eye on them. They are helping Threepio and the Solo twins decorate the meeting house. Tonight is going to be a huge affair with most of the village and half of Mos Eisley here."

Mara laughed and linked her arm through her husband's as they started wandering down the street, "Well, hopefully not half of Mos Eisley. They won't fit."

Luke huffed softly, "It's going to be a lot of people. There are other Water Celebrations in Mos Eisley proper as well as Mos Espa, but this is the best place to be because this evening it might really happen. Maybe."

"It never _has_ happened, Luke. 10 years and of course the moisture level in the atmosphere has risen so much because you and Vader keep sublimating the ice caps of the moons, but still no rain. But still, it must be amazing to commonly see clouds!"

"It sure is. There are official Cloud Tourists from all over the planet who come here because Skywalker Town is the best place to find them due to the topography of the region."

"But never any rain."

"Maybe tonight," Luke replied, his eyes soft with awe at the thought. "It's going to be a little cooler than usual on top of the perfect positioning of the suns and the moons and all that jatz. It could actually happen tonight, Mara. I'm excited."

Mara leaned on him a little more heavily, "I hope it happens tonight, Luke. Rain on Tatooine. It would be beautiful to see."

"You need to sit down," the Jedi Master responded, shifting from former moisture farmer to doting husband. "The last thing we need is the early arrival of twins tonight."

"Doesn't sound too bad to me," the former Emperor's Hand groaned. "My poor feet. But yes, they should hang in the womb for a bit longer."

He abruptly swung her into his arms, ignoring her squawk of surprise, and carried her lightly toward the town Meeting Hall, which was now only 100 meters away.

"People are staring at us," Mara stated, blushing slightly.

"Let them stare."

There were indeed many natives of Skywalker Town out and about this exciting morning, and Mara observed many looks and a few pointing fingers as Luke carried her toward the large community center. But she could sense all the curiosity was benign. Perhaps one of the reasons that both Vader and Luke spent time here was that Skywalker Town, in spite of its cringe worthy name, was a place where the former Dark Lord and his son were able to hang out without people scraping and bowing before them.

"I think that's why Leia likes it here too," Luke commented.

Mara dug a slightly pudgy elbow into his side, "Don't read my mind, Farmboy."

"Don't think so loudly, Wife," he replied in a snarky tone, even as he set her carefully down inside the open doorway of the center. Three small people waited there, alerted by the Force that their mother had arrived.

"Mom!" squealed the Skywalker children. Mara knelt slightly, adjusting for her shifted center of gravity, and hugged dark haired Owen (age 8), blond Lincon (age 6), and red haired Clarissa (age 4).

"It's so good to see you," she said, her eyes filling with tears. It had only been three days since they had been parted but that was a long time to be away from her children, especially Clarissa, who was very much a Mama's girl.

"Mommy, Chewie gave me a Wookiee doll!" the little girl stated, whacking a small Wookiee plush in her mother's face. Mara pushed it gently away from her eyes with the Force even as she smiled.

'It's beautiful, Clari. Chewie, thanks for helping watch the children."

Chewbacca roared in an encouraging way; Mara didn't speak Shyriiwook well, but she knew that Solo's companion had made the Skywalker clan part of his Honor Family. He was wonderful with her children – a protective, gentle gigantic walking carpet who had an amazing capacity to sense when her offspring were getting into trouble or just needed a hug.

"Mara, come over here and sit down!" Leia called from across the room. Mara took a step toward her sister-in-law, then stopped as Clarissa leaped forward to wrap her small arms around her right leg. Using the Force, Mara lifted her daughter into her arms and waddled over to her sister-in-law, who was sitting on a krayt dragon leather couch against one wall, and fell rather sat down beside her. Clarissa landed on her mother's babies' bump, slid off with a shriek of joy, then ran off in search of her father.

"Ergh," Mara muttered, looking at her enormous torso.

"Argh," Leia added agreeably. "You look like Jabba the Hutt."

"You're not exactly svelte yourself, my dear," Mara shot back, studying her sister-in-law's body.

Leia smirked and pointed at her own abdomen, "One."

She then pointed at Mara's burgeoning belly, "Two."

"Yes, and I can't imagine starting with twins like you did, Leia," Mara said with a shake of her head. "I found Owen to be completely overwhelming and you and Han had Breha and Shmi while running the galaxy. At least Luke and I have quite a bit of experience with babies now."

The former Empress gestured and two glasses of blue milk floated toward them.

"By the time they were born, I was more of a figurehead," Leia said, taking a sip of the liquid. "You may or may not remember but I went into hiding for three months after they were born. I suggest that you plan on dropping out of public life for at least six months post partum. Twins are an awe inspiring amount of work."

"I truly can't imagine," her sister-in-law sighed, grabbing the blue milk and taking a swallow. "One baby at a time was tough. But we'll have lots of support so it'll be Ok. If nothing else, Vader will help out with the older kids."

Leia smiled slightly, "He's amazingly good with the children, he really is. I know he regrets he wasn't around when Luke and I were babies, and he tries, in his own slightly awkward way, to make up for it. He changed more than a few of Bre and Shmi's diapers when they were babies, so don't discount his help with your newborns."

Mara grinned, "I will definitely press him into service. Speaking of my esteemed father-in-law, where is he?"

Leia glanced up, "He's on the fourth floor fussing around with his rain machine."

"Rain machine?"

"Yes, he's going to bombard the clouds above Skywalker Town at dusk using tiny particles with the hopes of precipitating rain drops heavy enough to fall."

The former Emperor's Hand frowned, "Isn't that kind of cheating?"

"There is no cheating where rain on Tatooine is concerned," Luke commented, stepping up to the couch where his wife and sister were sitting. "Any rain is good rain, and if Father can convince the clouds to rain there will be great rejoicing even if it takes some sneaky technology to make it happen."

/

_Community Center_

_Skywalker Town_

_Tatooine_

_That Evening..._

"Don't lose the kids," Leia said worriedly, staring first at her husband, then at her insane twin six year olds who were currently rolling around on the floor apparently trying to grab one another's feet.

"I won't lose the kids," Han replied. "I promise."

"Luke."

"Yes, Mara, I know – don't lose the kids."

"Seriously, there are three of them and one of you. Maybe I should come ..."

"Absolutely not, love of my life," Luke Skywalker replied firmly. "You are 32 weeks pregnant with twins and if you cavort outside you might well have them early. Don't worry, I'll keep firm tabs on them and Wedge and Father will help."

"I'm only carrying one baby," Leia commented with a frown. "Maybe I should ..."

"No, Leia, no," Solo replied, shedding his cheerful bonhomie and taking on the mien of a stubborn and devoted husband. "You know you've been contracting a lot and you still have 10 weeks to go. Sit here with Mara and take it easily. If the rain starts falling, I'm guessing you'll know it."

The two women exchanged glances and smiled simultaneously.

"Ok, have fun with the children and we'll hope for rain," Leia said.

The hordes of Skywalkers, Solos, various former Rebels, and enthusiastic denizens of Skywalker Town streamed out of the door and into the Tatooine dusk. Darth Vader was already out in the village square with his homemade Rain Machine, having just shot myriad particles into the clouds which had indeed gathered over Skywalker Town as the air temperatures decreased.

"Leia," Mara said when the great hall was mostly quiet. It had been a busy and exciting afternoon with much food and cheer, but now the only people remaining behind were the elderly and a few human and droid workers.

"Yes?"

"I walked through the Alderaan exhibit on Agricultural Haven."

Leia looked at her sister-in-law, whose eyes were sympathetic.

"It's beautiful, Leia."

The former princess of Alderaan took a deep breath and smiled, "It really is, isn't it? It will never replace what was lost, but it does my heart good to know that some of these rare animals and plants are being tenderly cared for and propagated by skilled and kind individuals."

"I saw some Manka Cats zonked out in one corner of the exhibit."

"They are a rare subspecies found only on Alderaan," Leia said with a fond smile. "Fortunately, a few were preserved because they were in a zoo on Delaya, Alderaan's sister world. The breeding program on Delaya was successful and now we hope that the Haven will prove another fertile place for breeding."

"I'm glad," Mara replied softly.

Leia nodded, "I will always grieve what was lost, Mara. But some of Alderaanian culture, fauna, and flora have been preserved, and for that I am most thankful."

To the right of the two women, there was a sudden, odd, unexpected, peculiar, bizarre sound.

Mara turned in shock and lurched to her feet, using the Force to help propel her large body toward the window. Splatting against the transparisteel ...

"Look, Leia. Rain!"

The End


End file.
